


Some Kind Of Monster

by daddydreadful



Series: Penny Grinning Soul [2]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bargaining, Bill Skarsgard Form, Demon/Human Relationships, Dubious Consent, F/M, Human Pennywise (IT), More tags to be added, POV Female Character, Seduction, There’s a plot to this one, Trickster Pennywise, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Warnings May Change, clown sex, insane asylum, starvation attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-02-04 04:38:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12763329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daddydreadful/pseuds/daddydreadful
Summary: ***Sequel to “So Much Like Dying” - please read that one first***You thought you’d never see him again.  You had fulfilled your end of the bargain, and he, his.  He had won; you had lost, but you did so willingly; it’s what you both agreed.  Now no harm will come to your young cousin Jimmy.  You, on the other hand are not as safe from harm as you think, your heart OR your body, and Pennywise sure does love his little games...





	1. Going Slightly Mad

**Author's Note:**

> Here I go, inserting too much seriousness into the Pennywise fandom again. ^_^;;
> 
> I wasn’t quite able to get the same dream-like tone as So Much Like Dying, but I hope you enjoy this one anyways.

Monsters are real.

This isn’t a revelation. You have always known they existed. Hasn’t everyone?

Like many people, you started seeing them at a young age. Each sighting was different, deeply personal to the witness. Maybe you saw them in the faces of certain kids, those that loomed over you like malevolent giants--the bullies that made you scared to go to school or walk down the streets of your neighborhood alone. Maybe they were in the muffled sounds of your parents fighting downstairs or in the bruises on your mother’s face the next day. Sometimes you’d pass them on the street, their heads bowed, their steps quick, forever turning a blind eye to the suffering around them. They were everywhere. You have known them your whole life, and they have known you.

You just never thought you’d be one yourself.

Two weeks have passed since you first arrived at your aunt’s doorstep. Two weeks of walking circles in her empty house, eating junk food out of the pantry, sleeping fitfully in the guest room, watching mindless TV. It was nothing out of the ordinary, the typical human existence.

Except not for you. You could no longer say you’ve had the typical human existence.

Not since _he_ visited.

He, the monster you sold your heart to, whose claws have claimed you, running rivets of blood down your soul, shredding it to pieces and leaving you to gather them. Who made you feel things you had never felt before. Who played with you, used you, and then left. Just like so many others.

But now you know: the others could never compare to _him_. His touch, or lack of it, was a phantom pain. You felt it constantly, his hands on you, his breath. You couldn’t count the number of times you had stopped your mindless existence these past two weeks and whipped around, certain he was behind you. But he never was and would likely never be again.

He should have just killed you. It would have hurt less.

“Crazy,” you mutter to yourself, shaking your head. You are crazy. Disgusting, awful, like him.

 _Child killer_.

You feel sick. Surely, you can’t get any lower than this.

You’re standing in front of the small, fake fireplace in the living room, one hand resting against the mantle, the other holding a small stack of envelopes. You promised Aunt Betty you would collect her mail while she was gone, and each day you have, finding nothing of particular concern or notice.

Until today.

Among the stack of envelopes is one that stands out. It’s a little larger than the others, a little thick around the middle, a little crumpled, and it’s not addressed to Betty. It’s addressed to you.

Slowly, you blink yourself out of your melancholy stupor. Scrawled across the top left corner are the words _Camp Lohikan_. It’s from Jimmy. Feeling a spark ignite in your chest for the first time in days, you tear open the envelope. As your eyes fall on the yellow, folded letter between your fingers, your excitement dips. You bite your bottom lip, consternation creasing your brow. What if the letter tells you he’s not having a good time? That he’s homesick, friendless. _Alone_. You can’t bear to think of Jimmy unhappy. It’s why you did what you did, why you bargained with the devil, bet your body and mind knowing you would lose, allowing Jimmy--and the devil--to win. Or… at least it started off as the main reason...

Whatever. It's the _final_ reason, you think furiously to yourself. No matter what happens, no harm will come to Jimmy, you won’t let it. You _won’t_. You are in his corner, forever. Because no one was ever in yours.

Gently, you open the letter. You smooth it out, your fingers and breath hushed with a care reserved for precious things. You read the scribbled words quickly, determined, like a bloodhound, to sniff out any hint of wrongness. But there isn’t any. He’s having a great time. In fact, it’s the “best summer he’s ever had.” He’s made friends, friends for life, he says. He can’t wait to see you, to tell you about them. There’s so much excitement in the letter it’s practically smacked you in the face like a pie and you laugh, hesitant and stunned at first, then with sheer, weightless delight. It’s unbelievable. He’s _happy_.

Now you’ve reached the end of the letter. You pause at the signature. “ _Love, Jimmy_.” Not Jim-- _Jimmy_. Tears dot your eyes, but you smile through them, determined not to let them fall. You were saving those tears for later, when night, and nothing else, showed up at the foot of your bed.

That’s when you notice something else in the envelope. It’s a small turtle, made out of bits and bobs, no doubt the work of a twelve year old boy who would rather be outside playing but loved you enough to sit and make it for you anyways. Smiling, you hold the turtle close to your chest, and for that one brief moment, everything in your small, quiet world is okay.

Until a spark bursts between your fingers, making you look down. You can't believe it: the turtle... _is on fire!_

It happens so fast. One minute, you’re leaning against the mantle, your mind elsewhere, and the next, you’re shrieking in surprise and dropping the half-burnt thing to the ground in front of the fireplace. There’s no time to think--you stomp on the small pile of flames, waving your arms in a panic. Thin trails of smoke waft from underneath your sneakers, and the room quickly fills with the smell of burnt rubber.

And just when you’ve stomped the last bits of flame to ash-- _just_ when you think everything is back to being normal--the fireplace ignites with a loud _snap!_

It’s a roaring fire, spitting and sparking like a beast, and you stare at it for a second, mouth agape and body frozen in shock--until the flames reach out to touch you. They shoot up your pant leg like they are following a trail of gasoline, only pausing to grasp at the bottom of your sweater, setting it ablaze with a touch. You feel the heat immediately and you’re back to stomping and waving your arms wildly, except _this_ time, you’re screaming. You don’t know how it happened, but it doesn’t matter: this is the end, you're sure if it. For a moment, your eyes seem to catch on the blackened remains of the turtle smoldering at your feet… but then the flames surge around you, engulfing you in a swirling vortex of blinding, burning light. And you're gone.

****

Little by little, your consciousness seems to stir itself awake. You feel hard ground beneath you, but something dusty clings to your lashes, making it hard to open your eyes. It's hard to breathe, too, and you sputter and cough, your mouth full of ash. You're dead, you think. You have to be. _Please be dead._

You cough the last bit of ash from your lungs and scrub your hands around your face. Now you notice a loud whooshing sound around you, and when you finally raise your eyelids, your arm unconsciously shields your vision, as if doing so could keep you from seeing the eternity you had no doubt earned for yourself. But an eternity is a long time to wait for a curious mind, and before you know it you've lowered your hand.

And have to pick your jaw off of the floor.

It isn’t heaven, _that's_ for sure. But it isn't hell, either.

It’s _worse_.

You're high in the air, standing in the middle of a large, flat chunk of rock. Other chunks of rock float around you, occasionally drifting pass, spurred by a monstrous, phantom wind that roars and prowls around the area like a living thing. It takes your eyes a second sweep around before you notice something. There are _things_ on the rocks, strange things. You peer at a few of them, squinting through the wind and past your rising disbelief. There's an innocuous-looking stretch of grass with flowers as large as stop signs; a life-sized checkerboard with black and white tiles that shift without warning; giant swinging pendulums, like those out of a corny old adventure movie; a mirror maze with trap doors that open right into the abyss below; a red-and-white-striped helter skelter that’s the size of a castle tower; and weirdest (and creepiest) of all, a long stretch of rock littered with nothing but man-sized carnival punks painted like clowns. Some of the rocks are connected by rickety-looking rope bridges, some have ropes and handles strung from one rock-edge to another, and others have nothing but a leap of faith. Your eyes follow the rocks upwards until you see a series of large red arrows and flashing marquee lights spelling “WAY OUT” and “EXIT THIS WAY,” and they’re definitely _not_ just a jump, skip, and a hop from where you are standing.

The more you stare, the more you realize it’s like an obstacle course. A giant, carnival-themed obstacle course floating over an abyss.

“Oh hell no,” you say. “I am _not_ doing this.”

Nothing happens.

“You hear me?” you say, louder this time. “I am NOT doing this! PENNYWISE!” you scream.

Once again you hear nothing but the wind so you cross your arms with a scowl. “He can’t make me,” you mutter stubbornly to yourself (even though you know it’s a lie). “Come down here and make me,” you threaten breathlessly to the air, your heart knocking frantically against your ribs. Just like before, it all feels so real.

But that’s because it _is_ real. You believe it this time.

And that’s why your heart drops into your stomach when you hear a loud rumbling sound behind you. At the other end of the rock there's a large black fireplace standing all by itself. It's what you rolled out of after the enchanted fire in your aunt’s house swallowed you up and transported you here. Except _now_ it’s breaking apart. The rock is crumbing, large chunks, small chunks—it’s all falling away into the abyss. It creeps ever towards you, the line of disappearing rock, and it’s so absurdly dramatic it’s like you’re watching a made-for-tv movie. But absurd or not, you can’t ignore the feeling of the wind snapping against your exposed ankles, irrefutable proof that you’ve backed up as far as you can go.

You chance a look over your shoulder and immediately regret it—there’s nothing but darkness below you.

“ _Asshole_ ,” you hiss under your breath. _Of course_ , he would do this. Leave you alone and questioning your sanity for two long weeks, then plunge you straight into this ridiculous excuse of a nightmare. There _has_ to be a way out of here. You look around yourself again but nothing presents itself… except for the marquee lights winking cheerfully at you through the gloom, so very high above.

 _No_ , you think furiously to yourself. No! You are _not_ playing his game!

The crumbling noise behind you is louder. Now it almost drowns out the sound of the wind.

You’ve run out of time.

You press your lips together, sighing heavily out of your nose. You look again at your feet. They’re standing half on rock and half on air, and below them is only the void.

Fall, you think suddenly. You’ll just have to fall.

Like in nightmares, lucid ones, when the veil between the worlds of the conscious and unconscious mind is thin and the dreamer recognizes the dream. A jump off of a high ledge would always startle you awake. It would feel strange and unnerving, your dream self sensing you fall and starting to panic, but your real self, and your bed, would catch you every time.

 _He’ll_ catch you, you know it. He won't let you die. Who else would play his twisted little game? Who else would want to?

You’ve made your decision. Around you swirls the little hell he’s wrought for you, but you're not afraid. You're _electric_ , emboldened with the kind of thrill that only comes from breaking the rules.

You step off the ledge.

Immediately, the wind comes up to meet you, roaring in your ears and flinging itself through your clothes and hair, but it certainly doesn’t catch you. You’re falling fast, your stomach’s in your throat, and when you close your eyes, it only makes it worse. Anytime now, you think, anytime now and he’ll—

You plunge straight through the darkness and onto solid ground, landing hard on your feet. You hear a loud _snap!_ and then one leg collapses beneath you, throwing you to the floor. You have just enough time to notice bleak white walls around you when a scream rips through your throat. _Your leg is broken._

Instinctively, you grasp your leg around the knee and pull it protectively close to your chest, your screams echoing around the tiny room. You’ve never broken anything before, and the pain—and your confusion—is enough to turn you insane.

 _Insane,_ you think suddenly. Wait a minute…

The door bursts open. Immediately, you are descended upon by two people in blinding white. They grab your arms and uninjured leg, pinioning you tightly to stop your thrashing. One is a woman clothed in a nurse’s uniform of old, and the other...

Bright eyes find yours, a shade of blue that shouldn't exist, and you can’t escape their pull. They’re set in a face that strikes like a knife, and each cut across your heart is a beautiful death you accept without hesitation. You just want to stare at him forever, or die for him a thousand times.

But you also want to smack his face.

“You asshole!” you scream at him through your tears. “Stop doing this to me!”

It’s _him_ , the snake in the garden dressed as a man, who never riles to your accusations. Who makes you think you actually belong here in this dark ruse of a hospital--just like how he reacts now, by ignoring your outburst with the ease of a doctor's well-practiced calm.

“I thought the episodes had stopped,” the nurse says to him.

“We’ll have to give her a higher dose this time,” he replies back to her, and his voice is a perfect rendition of the human doctor he is playing, almost real enough to fool you. _Almost_.

You hurl a few more profanities his way but his reaction, or lack of it, is the same. Eventually the pain in your leg overcomes the pain of his presence, and you feel your consciousness start to fade.

“I'm going to set your leg.” He says it calmly, like you're just his patient, nothing more, and then the sudden snap of pain sends you careening into the dark.

****

You know where you are before you're fully awake. You can tell by the jangle of the restraints wrapped around your wrists as you try to move them; by the feel of the thin, down-filled mattress beneath you; by the way the very air itself seems to weigh you down with its heavy, pensive sadness, as if it was as stuck in here as you were.

You’re still in the asylum.

This illusion or trip to the past--you could never figure out which--is a nightmare-turned-alive, and you yell and thrash against the iron bed, finding it all too easy to “play” your part. You scream until your voice shrinks into nothing but whimpers, and when your movements finally still, you raise your head and look down at yourself. You're clothed in a plain, colorless smock, the kind often worn by patients--and prisoners. Your right leg is fully enclosed in a heavy white cast. You still feel the pain of the break as an echo, and your mind reels at the realness of it, the realness of everything. Pennywise is never going to let you go. Now you can't even run from him, as if you had the chance to do so in the first place.

You don't know how long you lay there, staring up at the lone flickering bulb in the ceiling. You remember what happened the last time you were tied to this bed, but the sudden rush of heat and heartbeat only seems to make your despair worse. You know he won't come to you until you're practically begging for him.

You suck in a breath. That's it. He wants your complete surrender to the truth, the shedding of your human skin, revealing the monster beneath. You did it once, and he knows you'll do it again. He's just curious about how long it will take this time.

But you're not going to give him that.

“Pennywise,” you say softly. “I… I can't take it anymore. This is driving me crazy...” You snuffle pitifully and squeeze out a few tears, hardly surprised by how easy it is to feign surrender (when deep down you know that you mean it).

“ _Please_. I know you're there. I know you can hear me. I give up, I--”

There's a clanging sound. The door opens, but it isn't the clown or the man. It's the nurse, holding a tray of food.

“I've brought you something to eat,” she says brusquely as she walks into the room. She pulls a small stool towards you and seats herself. You look at the tray. A sad piece of hardened bread sits next to a bowl of indeterminable yellow liquid. But you're not hungry, far from it, so when she leans forward and offers the spoon, you dodge it with a head jerk.

Instead, you ask her: “Where is he?”

She seems to sigh and tut at you. “If you don't eat, you won't get better.”

“I'm not sick,” you protest.

The nurse nods at your leg. “You hurt yourself in your last episode. Do you remember?”

“I don't have episodes!” you yell, but the look she gives you says that you're only proving her theory correct.

You dodge another feeding attempt. “Where is he?” you demand again.

“Where is who, dear?”

“You fucking know who I mean!”

This earns you another look. “Is this about the man you keep talking about?”

“Yes,” you say emphatically. “Pennywise.”

The nurse looks down at the bowl of soup, idly dragging the spoon around the brim. It sounds like a mouse squeaking in pain. “Who is this Pennywise?”

“A sad excuse for a trickster,” you retort. “His allusions, they're about as real as the cardboard sets you see in a play made by five year olds! He's even more pathetic as a clown.” You learn towards her, straining against your bonds. “And you can tell him I said that,” you say fiercely and without thinking, too fed up to be afraid.

The spoon—and the sound—stops. The woman looks back up at you. You didn't notice her eye color before; the irises are startlingly blue.

And now they're yellow.

“ _Oh_ ,” the nurse breathes with a pointed joker smile. “He knows, dearie. _He knows_.” The tray falls from her hand, soaking her uniform with soup, but she doesn't seem to care.

But _you_ care because now she's rising, _changing_ , and you can do nothing but watch. It's a gruesome spectacle, the tearing away of her skin to reveal silken gray underneath, a sight that makes your body flood with thrill and terror, relief and regret--and _hate_ , so much hate, for him but mostly for yourself.

“You looking for ol’ Pennywise?” the nurse says, her face a twisted nightmare and her voice a garbled mess. “He’s here. _He’s everywhere_.”

 _Everywhere_. The word seems to echo, growing louder in volume instead of softer, and suddenly you're looking at a room that is morphing, shifting and melting apart like warm taffy straight from the pull. The bed starts to shake, the floor drops away, and nothing, not even the nurse, is recognizable anymore.

Except for Pennywise.

He’s materializing out of the miasma of colors, his limbs twisting around and around as he rights himself. He’s also growing, stretching larger than his usual size until you’re but a toy to him, the helpless damsel to his monstrous King Kong. There’s nothing but light and air around you now but still you feel something ghosting across your body, a touch that’s sure in its intent to drive your already rabbiting heart into overdrive. Now you understand the nurse’s words: Pennywise is _everything_ , even the air itself, and you’ve never felt so unprotected. Here there isn’t a headboard to back up against or even a blanket to cower under for some small semblance of security. It’s just you and him—except this time, he knows you, inside and out. He’s looked in your past to see your future, and you can almost feel his confidence buzzing through the air, his excitement. He reaches towards you and you tense, the shadow of his gloved hand covering you like a canopy, but he doesn’t grab you. Instead, he seems to pinch the air above your head, and suddenly your arms are rising and your body’s following until you’re dangling by unseen threads in front of his face.

He smiles at you and draws you closer. You shriek when he nips at your dangling feet with teeth the size of your legs. At this size, he could easily swallow you whole.

But he already has, hasn’t he?

You see his chest rising and falling as he breathes, and his exhales flood your face, zapping all of your nerve endings awake like the breath of life. When he speaks, you feel the vibration deeper than your bones.

“Not real enough for you, [Y/N]?” He pouts (though still somehow manages to look threatening). “That _hurt_.”

“I’m-I’m sorry!” you gasp out.

“You're not playing by the rules,” he says darkly, and you shudder--at this distance, you can't help but notice the eerie endlessness of his eyes, like two sentient voids filled with light instead of darkness but still just as compelling. Even now as you stare into them, you begin to lose yourself.

But you don’t want to lose yourself.

“Let me go,” you whisper. “Please.”

He seems to ponder this a moment, tapping his large lower lip with a finger. Then with a cheerful “Alright!”--he does what you want… he lets you go.

You try not to scream--you try not to think you didn't know this was going to happen--but as a dirt-covered floor appears several feet below you, a loud, distressed cry escapes your throat. You're going to fall and break something again, you just know it. It's punishment for insulting him and for refusing to be his little lab rat in a cage.

But… he surprises you, for you land softly this time, bouncing lightly on your heels. Your eyes immediately zoom down to your injured leg, but it isn't broken anymore. The cast is gone; instead, you're wearing black ballet shoes and opaque white tights, and your eyes slowly move to take in the rest of your body with a sinking feeling in your chest. You're wearing what looks to be a ballerina costume in a red and black harlequin pattern. Your hips are completely surrounded by a large tutu made out of stiff white tulle. You hair is swept up and tied with ribbon, and you can tell that your face is completely covered in makeup. But worse than what you’re wearing is what’s surrounding you: stands and stands of people, hundreds of them, all looking down at you. When a spotlight pools at your feet, you look up, shielding your eyes from the glare. You're standing under a large canvas tent in the middle ring of a big top circus. Your stomach immediately clenches as the stares of the crowd impale you like arrows. They very clearly wanted a show, and you were the only act on stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” booms an excited voice overhead. “Children of all ages! We now present for your entertainment the most magnificent, super-colossal event! It’s the amazing, stupendous, so-breathtaking-it-can’t-be-real, Dancing [Y/N]!”

There’s complete silence. Then a lively circus tune pipes up, startling you, but you still don’t move. The crowd starts to stir, booing and pelting the ground around you with debris. Peanuts and popcorn explode over you like fireworks, and you raise your arms to shield yourself, your cheeks burning with embarrassment. Although real, you know this illusion isn’t _your_ reality so it shouldn’t affect you, but you just can’t convince your ears to ignore the sound of the jeering crowd. Getting caught off guard in front of a large group of people is one of your biggest fears, and you’d rather break your leg a hundred times then endure this for another minute.

Suddenly, your body dips in a low bow. Before you even have time to be surprised, your feet are propelling you forward into a series of jerking dance steps that do nothing to cool your cheeks. Your arms are rising and flinging around yourself awkwardly, making you feel like a wind-up doll with a bad motor. The crowd starts to laugh, and you’re so mortified you want to sink straight through the floor and never be seen from again.

That’s when you feel it: strings, spidersilk-thin, wrapped around your wrists, knees, and ankles, and you understand. Immediately, you fling your head back and see him, the giant puppeteer to your tiny marionette: _Pennywise_. He’s grinning down at you, savage and smug, his hands holding large wooden handles, and you swear your heart has fled. You’ll never be free of him. You know it, oh do you know it. Even when the puppeteer retreated back behind the curtain, when you’ve been dumped unceremoniously back into the real world, you know you’ll still feel his strings on you, forever guiding your desires.

Pennywise, it seems, always got his way.

The crowd’s laughter surges--Pennywise has you bent over, your tutu perpendicular to the ground and your bloomers on full display--but a flare of anger overcomes your tears of chagrin. Without warning, you plant your feet and tug as hard as you can, adrenaline charging through your veins. And it _works_ \--a handle tears from Pennywise’s hand, landing in the dirt several feet away, large as a tractor wheel. Your body--and the music--comes to a complete stop. The crowd immediately starts to boo again but this time you’re too defiant to feel embarrassed.

“Yeah, fuck you, too,” you say sarcastically, sharing your middle fingers with the crowd. You glare up at Pennywise. “And _fuck you_ most of all--”

You feel the strings around your hands jerk and suddenly you’re rising in the air, swirling like a ballerina in a music box. The clown lifts you clear out of the tent, but instead of drawing you close like last time, he sets you on the ground just outside of the big top. A wooden booth materializes in front of you, and the strings on your wrists and ankles immediately latch onto it, securing you tightly. You look up and stare at an empty, gray sky--Pennywise is gone.

Confused, you look around yourself. You see empty tents and discarded food--it’s like you’re back in that dark carnival, the one that your happy little garden turned into when you, like Eve, chose the snake over everything else. A small clear jar appears on the booth, half-full of quarters. You peer at it curiously for a moment then lean as far forward as you can to read the sign on the front of the booth. Scrawled in large block letters are the words: “Kissing Booth, 50 cents.” _Oh no_ , you think. You’re tugging at your bonds again when you see a person walking towards you, followed by another and another. They’re men, at least you _think_ they are men--they’re grotesque, covered in boils and dirt, clothed in rags, and with filthy, leering smiles on their faces. They shuffle towards you like zombies in a line, their eyes just as obscenely hungry. You see silver coins glinting in their diseased hands. Oh no, _no!_ you think again. This can’t be happening. You feel sick—you don’t want them to touch you, don’t want to feel their hands grabbing at you, or their foul breath on your skin.

Now the first one is almost upon you, and you strain as far back as your bonds will let you, tears clouding your vision. This is a nightmare you will never wake up from, and you’ve never wanted death to find you more.

But then a figure steps in front of the booth, cutting the line completely, and you’re slowly, nervously looking up…

Into blue eyes that devour you, a face that kills you, hands reaching towards you, bringing your peace _and_ your doom. The _man_ , Dr. Gray--he was like a beautiful stiletto blade or a surgeon’s knife, delicate and deadly all at once. You wanted death and here he was, standing before you with two quarters in his palm.

You can do nothing but stare at him as he reaches forward and tips the quarters into the jar. His other hand is cupping your face, fingers lightly caressing the back of your neck, but you barely notice it. You’re a moth caught in the burning light of his presence. He’s leaning towards you, gently angling your head back, but just like before, he pauses when he’s but a breath away. It’s like he’s asking for permission to kiss you, and you give it, immediately, straining towards him instead of away. His kiss is just like you remember, possessive and overpowering from the start, and as you breathe in the air he gives you, your body comes alive in a way that only seems to happen with him. It was as if all other kisses and and all other breaths were counterfeit, poorly made copies of a kind of truth, the truth about living. You wanted death and instead this man--this _monster_ \--brought you life.

_“What is going on here?”_

Gradually, reluctantly, you pull away and open your eyes. The voice belongs to a woman hurrying towards you, her hand on her head, holding down her white nurse’s cap so that it doesn't fly off in the wind.

“ _There_ you are, we’ve been looking _everywhere_ for you, [Y/N],” she says angrily. She waves over her shoulder at the two male orderlies behind her, and they descend on you before you’ve barely had a chance to recover. You feel their vice-like grips on your arms and around your waist, and you instinctively fight back, your hair sticking to your sweat-beaded face, obscuring your vision.

“[Y/N]?”

You freeze. That voice. It _can't_ be.

“Jimmy?” you whisper. The orderlies still have a hold on your arms, so you jerk your head up, tossing your hair out of your face.

You see light eyes, fire-red hair, and a constellation of freckles across an upturned nose. It's him, Jimmy, standing in a crowd of people a few feet away. All eyes are staring at you, some with curiosity, some with concern, and you're startled to see such normal-looking citizens, the line of leering men--and Dr. Gray--nowhere to be found. You're even more startled to recognize two other pairs of eyes, Aunt Betty’s and--

“Mom...?” You don't remember the last time you saw her and your aunt together like this.

The orderlies have started dragging you away from the booth. “Wait!” you yell, struggling against your captors once more. “Mom! Aunt Betty! What are you--”

“I'm truly sorry for this,” the nurse says to your family. “I know it's hard to watch. But when we get her back to the institute, we'll give her a nice cup of soup and a warm bath, and she'll be right as rain.”

_What?_

“No!” you exclaim. “Not the asylum! I don't belong there! Pennywise--”

“Will she ever recover?” your mom asks the nurse softly, concern bright in her tired, stress-lined face. “This delusion… it's just so strong.”

“What? Mom, no, I'm not sick!”

“Don't worry, we’ll take good care of her,” the nurse replies, the friendly empathy in her voice paper thin.

“No! I don't want to go back! I'm not sick. Please!”

You're being dragged past Jimmy now, but your desperate struggles are all for naught; you can't break free. He watches you go, his eyes sad.

“Please get better, [Y/N]. I miss you.”

At this, you stop your struggling. You let yourself be dragged away, your eyes never leaving Jimmy’s face.

“I did this for you,” you whisper to him.

He's far away now, but he hears you and you hear him. “No,” he says solemnly. “You didn't.”

He's gone. You're back in the asylum, chained to your bed like before, like always. The lights switch off for the night, plunging you into darkness, as dark as the hole in your chest.

You don’t think you can slip any further into the black.


	2. Please Leave This Patient Undisturbed

It's been three days.  You haven't eaten the food you've been offered, and you've hardly moved in your bed.  Your arms are sore from the restraints and your stomach growls loudly from the lack of food, but you don't care—it's an old friend to you now, the pain, the despair.  You're practically numb to it.

He's come to you, twice now, his hands and his voice persuasive, telling you that you'll die if you don't eat, never dropping his oh-so-believable doctor facade.  But you don't listen.  You don't listen to the nurses’ threats either, and you fight off every feeding attempt.  It just didn't matter anymore, playing the game.  You wanted peace, and if the clown wasn't going to let you leave, you'll find your peace by starving to death.

After a particularly restless night of sleep, you open your eyes.  It should be the dawn of the fourth day of your captivity, but your eyes fill with nothing but blackness.  You stretch your hand out in front of your face, expecting to be stopped by the restraints, but you aren't—you're stopped by hitting your knuckles against a wooden board.  You palm the wood, following it outwards with both hands.  The wooden boards surround you on all sides like you're lying in a large box or a—

_Coffin._

You hear a muffled voice above you mutter, “Alright, hole’s dug,” and then a loud clattering sound makes you yelp.

“Pity this one didn't make it,” another voice says.

But you're _not_ dead.  It’s a mistake.  You’re alive.  You're being buried alive!

You scream, you pound against the wood until your hands bleed, but nothing stops the dirt from continually hitting the roof of the coffin.  After awhile, the sound turns rhythmic, like the eerie _boom-boom-boom_ of drums heard before an advancing army on the eve of war.  Strangely, though, this seems to calm you.  The end, the beginning, you didn't care what was coming up to greet you.  The fight was over; you lost.  All you know is that you aren't going to give _him_ the satisfaction of hearing you scream.

So you settle back, close your eyes.  Your breathing slows.  You can sense yourself becoming more and more enclosed, but you don't care.  Maybe death will be as easy as falling asleep.

You sense movement above you, a strong whooshing of air, and instinctively, you sit up with a gasp.

 _Freedom_.

You can't believe it.  You're back in Aunt Betty's house, lying on the bed in the guest room.  Already, the memory of what you just experienced was fading like a dream, but it wasn't a dream, it _wasn't_!

Was it?

You gasp and whimper, running your hands through your hair and clutching handfuls of it.  You feel like tearing it out.  This is madness.  Maybe you _should_ be locked away in a loony bin.

“You're no fun,” grumbles a voice.

And suddenly your madness makes sense.

 _There_ , in the corner: two glowing yellow eyes.  It's Pennywise, crouched on his haunches like a cat and glaring at you just as sternly.  You're relieved to see he is back to his normal-sized self (if pushing seven feet tall could be considered normal).  His movements are also like a cat’s, slinky and unexpected, and he startles you by getting up and gracefully settling himself cross-legged at the foot of your bed without a word.  Instinctively, you jump away, but a long arm shoots out and grabs your ankle, dragging you back towards him.  You press your back into the headboard and freeze, your hands gripping the bed sheet beneath you for comfort.  His yellow eyes haven’t blinked or left your face, and you can’t seem to break away either, _especially_ when you notice that he doesn’t look too pleased to see you here, on the wrong side of his illusion.

“Naaaughty,” he says with a growl.  “Naaughty human.  Giirrl.  Naughty girl.  _Tsk, tsk.._.”

“What do you want?” you ask breathlessly.  Your lungs feel like they can’t quite draw enough air until he answers.  You don’t know what you want him to say but it doesn’t matter.  He says nothing, effectively holding your breath hostage, just like the rest of you.  It was amazing, his control over you, even without the use of touch.  He was a conductor, directing the various parts of your body from afar and making them sing a song just for him.  His gloved hands with their long, elegant fingers would skim the air or lively tap on various parts of the bed or his body (his knees, his lips), and your skin would _ignite_ , flushed with heat and gooseflesh, every small hair on your arms or the back of your neck erect and reaching towards him, desperate to feel those fingers again.  His lips would move, stretching larger or smaller from smiles or growls and your thighs would quiver, yearning for him to sip from the fire burning between them, to stir the flames with his tongue.  A bell jingles or he looks delighted about something and joy blooms unexpectedly in your chest.  Now he’s somehow adorable, like an overgrown child in a costume, and you want to pull him close, laying his head on your chest while you wrap your arms around him, protecting him from this strange and savage human world.

Except it always comes crashing to a halt when you remember the truth.  _He_ is the strange and savage one.  He _murders_ kids, _eats_ them, tears them limb from limb, and now you’re thinking there is nothing more horrid in all of existence.

But then he leans forward.  He taps your belt buckle curiously with a nail.  He flicks it open with a twist of his wrist.  Your memory flares.  And as your skin lights up all over again, you realize that you are wrong.  There _is_ something more horrid than a child-eating monster: the one who loves him.

He looks up at you, the expression on his face no longer annoyed but back to how he usually looks at you: with intense, malignant pleasure (even if both eyes have drifted slightly apart).

“Miss me?” he says, mockingly coy.

You nervously shake your head, but he reaches forward and grabs your chin between thumb and forefinger, forcing you to “nod” in agreement.  “Aww, you did,” he says with a smirk, and your cheeks burn.  He releases your chin but only to place a large hand on each of your thighs.  You feel his fingers dig into your legs as he inches himself closer to you, leaving a trail of drool running from the button of your jeans to the stomach of your shirt.

Your throat is uncomfortably dry, but you force yourself to speak anyways.  “What do you want?” you demand again, sounding far braver than you actually feel now that he is so close.  Just like earlier, you don’t think he’ll answer you; it’s part of the game he plays.  Ignoring your questions keeps your ears desperate to catch every word he _does_ eventually say, and this time is no different when he growls into your face,

“To _feed_.”

His smile is a perversion, his voice a fear-spiking threat, but your heart clenches for an entirely different reason: when you realize you're disappointed with what he _didn't_ say.

Which, of course, he notices.

“ _Oh_ , were you hoping I’d say something else?  That I wanted... _‘you’_?” he says with a smug chuckle.  “The thing is…”  He points a finger into your chest, right above your breasts, then drags it up to lightly tap the hollow at the base of your neck.  “I have you already,” he says with dark, gloating cheer.  “Yes I do!”

Your breath hitches, first from his words, then again from his touch, and shame, hot and brilliant red, scorches across your cheeks and down your neck.  But there was something about his overconfident mocking that always seemed to grind your gears, and before you give your mind a moment to think twice, you’re swallowing hard and taking a deep breath of courage.

“But you _don’t_ have me.”

He snorts, shaking his head like an animal.

“Look around,” you continue with a demonstrative hand wave.  “Am I in your asylum?  _Nope_.  What is with you and asylums, anyways?  It’s not like they’re a new idea or anything.  Lots of people have used them.  They’re practically a trope by now.”  The more you talk, the more your confidence seems to grow.  It’s what you always did when you were nervous: talk too much.  Now your voice is rising dramatically, your hands mockingly miming a cage around yourself.  “‘Ooooh look, I’m in an insane asylum.  ‘Is it real?  Is it fake?  Am I going insane?  I’ll never know!’  Oh, and might as well touch on some women’s issues while we’re in here, just for the sake of good storytelling…”

Once the words leave your mouth, you immediately wish you can suck them back into your head.  Cautiously, you steal a glance in his direction.  Even without eyebrows, you can tell he’s back to looking severely displeased.

... _Shit._

 _Now you've done it, [Y/N]_ , you think as your heart starts to beat even faster.  _Why is your go-to defense to insult him?  That’s the absolute worst of plays!_

You shrink against the headboard, willing yourself to melt into it—but you should have known he'd keep you guessing.  He _was_ a trickster, after all.  Instead of retaliating in his usual way, he chooses to do something else: present you with a _literal_ eye roll, his irises disappearing completely into the top of his head and then popping back up into place to rest on you once more.

“Asylums are... _hysterical_ ,” is his reply, his voice a bone-dry hiss.

You blink at him.  A moment passes.  Then— “Did you just make a pun?” you say incredulously, but before you can decide whether to laugh or not, he throws out an arm and grabs you by the throat.  Your airway immediately constricts, his grip the tightest it’s ever been, and then he’s dragging you off of the pillow and further down the bed below him, his body and limbs surrounding you like a cage.  He watches you gasp and choke for what seems like hours before finally loosening his hold _just_ enough.  You gulp handfuls of air, your lungs burning.  But even as your fear of suffocation starts to lessen, the fiery blaze it ignited within you doesn’t.  It blossoms outwards from your chest, coursing along every limb and leaving a tingling mess in its wake, and you’ve never hated your crazy, fucked up self more.

Your hands are wrapped around his wrist.  He looms above you like a blood moon, your faces parallel.  There’s drool peeking out of the corner of his mouth.  It slides down his lips and drips straight onto yours.  Just like last time, the act is so suggestive, you have the immediate urge to take him in your mouth—but you also want to cry from your perversion.  A few more drops fall, and you find yourself desperately trying to keep your tongue from darting out and catching them.  You succeed, but it doesn’t matter—there’s a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth, and you remember: he can read your mind.  Everything inside and out is at his mercy, even your very thoughts, and you’ve never felt so horribly unsafe from harm.

But maybe you like that.

Your breath falters.  You swallow hard.

Maybe… you _are_ mad.

Except now he’s releasing you and climbing entirely out of the bed, stopping you from exploring the idea further.  But he doesn’t go far.  He’s taken to looking at the few family portraits hanging on the wall to your right, his back to you.  You have a sudden urge to laugh—it was so absurdly domestic, absurdly _human_ , like he was a boyfriend you’ve brought home to meet your family and you were giving him a tour of the house.  A very tall and strangely clothed boyfriend who likes to choke you and eat children, but maybe, you think wildly, you’ll just leave those little details out when you introduce him to Aunt Betty.  Because if she knew, she probably wouldn’t let you two sleep in the same room during your stay, resulting in one of you (probably him) having to sleep on the couch...

Now you _do_ laugh, but it’s so wet with tears of anguish, it’s more like a hiccupping, watery chuckle.  Your trembling increases to a rattling shake.  Here you are at the gallows, hands tied behind your back and hood over your head, about to be hung... and you're _laughing_ about it.  Isn’t this _so_ like you?  Constantly making your own ridiculous misery?  Luckily, Pennywise must have heard more sob than laugh because he doesn’t turn around.  He runs a long finger across the dust on the wall between the frames, but stops when he gets to the large, full-length mirror in the corner.  Here… he starts to smooth down his hair and check his lipstick.

 _That's it, lock me up and throw away the key_ , you think, your eyes wide with hilarious disbelief.  The sight of a murderous supernatural creature preening in front of a mirror (in the guise of a clown, no less)—and the crazy laugh that bubbles up within you as a result—is the final nail in the coffin.  You're insane.  It's fucking true.

Luckily, you still must have a modicum of sanity operating within you because the urge to laugh disappears and your fight-or-flight response finally kicks in when you notice for the first time that the doorway to the room is open— _wide_ open.  You stare down the hallway.  There on the left was the door to Jimmy’s room, further down was a bathroom, and _then_ —the stairwell, winding downwards and around the corner towards freedom.

You glance down at yourself.  There’s nothing holding you back except for your death-like grip on the bed sheet.  Pennywise himself is still not looking at you, completely preoccupied with the mirror.

You could run.

 _But he’ll catch me,_ you think.  Of course he would.  Easily.

It’s pointless to try and run.

But… it still might be… _exciting_.

You bite your lip, staring straight ahead.  The frenetic energy within you coils, readying itself without you having to think.  Which is good because your mind is miles away.  You're acting solely on instinct, on feelings… on sheer insanity.

With a surge of adrenaline, you bolt towards the door.  You're halfway down the hall when you chance a glance back.  The clown isn't behind you.  It's like he's disappeared completely.  Is he in front of you?  Nope, he isn't, only the stairwell is, and you grab the bannister, preparing to use it to propel you faster, when—

_Snap!_

You fall to the floor, your scream half-swallowed in surprise.  There's an intense, shooting pain in your leg, the one that had “broken” in Pennywise’s illusion—and you should have known, _oh_ , _you should have known!_

Your leg is broken again.

You clutch at it, tears running down your cheeks, your gasps and cries of pain echoing through the empty house.  You feel your hair being lifted up, and then the tendons in your neck scream as you’re hoisted half-off of the floor.  It's Pennywise, one large hand in your hair, dragging your broken, pathetic self back towards the guest room.  When he gets to the doorway, he flings you onto the bed again by your hair.  You land hard on your back, jarring your injured leg, forcing you to cry out—

The bed buckles.  A large hand shoots out and wraps itself back around your neck, cutting your cry in half.  He's looming over you again, _just_ like before, _just_ like how you thought you liked, but there's no excitement in you now.  There's only _pain_ —from your broken leg; from your shame; from his scalding, covetous gaze.  _Mine_ , the gaze seems to say.  _Mine and no one else's._ You can almost hear his threatening growl in your head: _Run from me again…_

 _I won't, I won't!_ you think desperately, but it appears Pennywise has a point he wants driven home because he’s not letting go.  Instead, he's pushing you down into the bed by your throat with so much force, you sink straight through it with a scream—

But you don't fall into darkness; you fall into an entirely different kind of terror: _water_.  You immediately start to panic, your fear of suffocating back with a vengeance and not at all enjoyable this time.  The water’s ice cold, and you flail your arms and kick at the water with your legs—even your broken one—but you can't tell which way is up or down.  As your air supply shrinks, your panic grows—you’re going to die for real this time.  You know it.  You’re going to die for real.

But you’re not ready, not ready at all.

You’re crying, but what does it matter?  Who could tell your tears apart from the water?

You feel a strange sort of suction, and suddenly your ears are popping and sound is rushing back towards you, air is filling your lungs and water is being scattered away from your eyes with every rapid blink.

“That’s enough,” a voice says, distantly at first but then as loudly as if the speaker was standing right next to you.

As she just so happened to _be_.

Through a stinging haze of tears and water droplets, you start to see white walls all around you and people in white clothing.  You look down: you’re wearing a white smock, you’re sitting on white ceramic tiles, your leg bears a heavy white cast—everywhere you look you are blinded by _whiteness_ , the color of peace, the color of safety, of happiness and new beginnings.

But it isn't a happy new beginning for _you_.

“No...” you moan.

“Just get her dry,” says the white blur that is the nurse standing over you.  “We can resume her hydrotherapy again tomorrow.”

“ _No…_ ” you say, louder this time.  “Please, no...”

Rough hands drag you to your feet.  You can’t stand on your own so they hold you up by your armpits, pulling your water-logged smock over your head and running towels over your body.  Vaguely, you can tell that you're completely naked in a room full of strangers, but for once, that's not what’s causing anguish to bloom like a cancer in your chest.

“No, not here…”  Now you’re crying.  “Not again, NOT AGAIN!”

The male orderlies surrounding you tug a dry smock back over your head.  You sway, wet hair draping over your face like a net.  You hear the squeak of wheels coming towards you, and you start to flail, screaming and lashing out like a rabid animal.

“No!  I don't want to go back!”

“She’s having a fit—”

“I don't belong here!  I’m not sick!  I’M NOT SICK!”

“Grab her arms—”

“It’s not me, it’s Pennywise!  PENNYWISE!”

“Where’s the sedative?  JUST GET ME THE DAMN SEDATIVE!”

“It’s him,” you sob.  “It’s not me…”  They have you pinned to the floor, the tile like ice against your skin.  You feel the needle pierce your arm.  Almost immediately your limbs feel heavy and your thoughts sluggish.  You can fight no longer.

“There we go…  There’s a good girl...”

“It's P-Pennywise…”  His name is the last thing on your lips as your eyes flutter close and your head falls back onto the tile.

****

You’re sick.  It’s what the nurses keep telling you, the orderlies, even your fellow inmates.  Doctor after doctor comes to see you.  They poke and prod, take your temperature, your blood pressure; shoot you up with syringes full of murky-looking liquid, and then you’re floating.

Yours is an interesting case, they say, one that requires constant observation.  They flock to you like awed spectators to a menagerie, a collection of wonders of the world.  That’s what you are, they say—” _special_.”  Unique.  In all the turnings of the earth, there’s never been one like you.  How _sweet_ , you think.  How _nice_.  You've rolled your eyes so much in the past several weeks, they're practically stuck to the top of your head.

In the end, though, you _do_ actually like it when they come to you.  When you’re floating, you can’t feel any pain.

You take your medicine dutifully, without a fight.  When they release your chains only to strip you naked for an examination or a bath, embarrassment doesn’t scour your cheeks red, at least not anymore.  It’s so much easier when you just do what they say.

Because when you do what they say the false memories that haunt your waking hours go away.

You wonder what you used to be.  A writer, perhaps?  An artist?  That would explain your seemingly limitless imagination.  It was so easy for your mind to slip into other worlds, ones never seen before and likely of your very own making.  Sometimes you’d hear the nurses talking about you in front of the locked door to your room.  You’d hear phrases like “beautiful mind” and “such a shame.”  Yes, what a shame you are to the outside world, to normal, healthy citizens.  To your family.  It’s better this way, being locked away in here.  Here your ramblings are quieted to murmurs and your fits nestled under a blanket of soothing numbness.  But even when they weren’t calmed, when you screamed and raged, babbling ceaselessly about the stalkings of a strange clown character or visions of a future unseen, the outside world stayed blissfully unaware, protected.  If the normal world—or your family—wanted to see you, they would simply need to buy a ticket of admission, seeing you only when they chose to, when they were ready.  You can’t fault them for this.  In fact, you can understand it.  Better to hide the madness away, to numb it, disown it, only casting your sight down upon it when your shoulders are squared, or your lungs are full, or perhaps never at all.

It has been some time since anyone you cared about visited you.  Even _him_.

But you don’t care.  Who is he, anyways?  Who is he to you, really?  _Nothing_.  Nothing at all.  Probably a figment of your hyperactive imagination.

Yes, when you’re floating, you don’t feel a thing.

The orderlies are here.  They release the restraints around your wrists but only to slip your arms into a straightjacket, the ties fastened tightly behind you.  “For your protection,” one of them says.  They help you into a wheelchair, then roll you out of the room.   The squeaking of the wheels are the only sounds you hear echoing down the narrow hallway.

Hallways, you think suddenly, are the perfect metaphor for life.  From where you are they seem endless—stretching into a horizon that’s ever unreachable—but you know they are not.  Hallways, like lives, always have an end.  But the journey onwards isn’t uneventful.  There are destinations all around you, closed doors just waiting to be opened.  Some doors lead to a dead end, forcing you to backtrack.  Others lead to room upon room, a series of connected events ever spurring you forward.  Sometimes, you open these doors yourself.  Other times, you are propelled through them against your will, just like now.  Which door has fate brought you to this time?

The orderlies wheel you into the room.  It’s dark, lit only by an incandescent bulb in the ceiling and a gas lamp sitting on a large desk.  Various papers and books are strewn across the desk; you notice medical diagrams and tiny penciled writing.  A tall leather chair sits behind the desk.  It’s currently empty, but someone was just here, you can feel it.

There isn’t a chair for visitors in front of the desk, and it’s in this spot that the orderlies take you, stopping your wheelchair with a screech that sends you forwards and backwards in quick succession like a tilting doll.  You hear the door shut behind you.  You’re alone.

Dully, you look around yourself.  The laudanum they give you always seems to coat everything in a pearly-white haze.  It’s almost peaceful.

There’s a large mirror to the left of the desk.  You see sallow skin, lank hair, and a face that takes you a few moments to place.  You don’t remember the last time you looked at yourself.

You’re still peering at your reflection when you see the door open behind you.  Immediately, your eyes lower, hiding the person from sight.  You hear the clink of well-heeled shoes walking around the right side of the desk.  You smell a hush of leather as the individual sits, hear the clatter of a clipboard as it is gathered up and held aloft, and even sense the feather-light touch of a page being turned.  You try to swallow around your now-murmuring heart; it's stuck there in your throat, and you don't want it to speak for you, to give you away.  Already, you can tell that this person isn’t any of the doctors that have darkened the bars of your cell, prodding at you like a cagemaster would a circus beast.  No, this touch is different.  Long fingers, elegant and precise, molding your pliant body into a shape that pleases, tightening muscles and pores until you’re straining like a wishbone ready to snap.  Already and despite your drug-addled haze, you feel the strain start to build again.  Oh what a wish it is, to be wound so tightly you break, a whole snapped in two and held by two, spurred by dreams and stardust.  There is no greater release, not in this world or even the worlds of your own making, the ones seen only in your delusional mind.

Slowly, you raise your eyes to the surface of the desk.  Facing you is a wooden nameplate that reads: _Dr. Robert Gray, alienist._

Your suspicions confirmed, you don't know whether to cry or laugh so you do neither, not even lifting your eyes from the desktop.

“[Y/N],” his voice says, reading from the clipboard, “one and twenty years of age.  Condition: female hysteria.  Symptoms: lassitude, loss of appetite, nervousness, hypersexuality, prior tendency to cause trouble.  But you’re a model patient now.”

Here, he pauses, waiting for some sort of reply, and the silence tugs at you, pulling your eyes upwards to finally catch on his.

Eyes—kill you—face—knife—stabs—lips—blood—clown— _clown_ —CLOWN—

It’s too much.  You can feel an episode coming on; it’s building up within you, the mania, the madness, and you don’t want to freak out in front of Dr. Gray, you _don’t_ , so you tear your eyes away from him and simply nod instead.

“And the episodes… they have lessened?”

Another nod.

“And this friend of yours, this clown—”

“He's not my friend,” you interrupt firmly (though your eyes are still glued to the floor).

“This clown, then.  This…”  He glances at the clipboard.  “Pennywise.  Do you still see him?”

Yes, you think.  All the time.  Whether sleeping or awake, alone or in a room full of people he's there, smiling at you, touching you, whispering lewd nothings in your ear.  You can't escape him.

“No,” you mumble.  “It's been a long time.”

“How long?”

“I don't remember.”

He's silent.  You hear him flip through the pages on his clipboard again.

“And have you had any… urges?”

Your eyes snap up to his and you immediately regret it, but you're too surprised by his question to look away.  When you say nothing, he clarifies.

“Digestive?  Manic?  Suicidal?”

Hesitantly, you shake your head.

He’s looking at you but it's like he's looking _in_ you, looking through your very skin to a hiding place that no eyes have ever seen.  It's unnerving.  _Dizzying_.

His lips move again: “Sexual?”

You're shaking.  You can hear the faint rattling of the ties behind your back.  Of course you've had urges.  Urges to run, to disobey, to scream.  But you've also had urges for _him_ , for his hands, his lips, for stolen moments under the looming shadow of a big top, the smell of stale popcorn in the air and his breath upon your skin.  These dreams—these “false memories,” as they were called by the medicinary—would feel _so real_ , yet never manifest when others were present.  As time passed, it became easier to believe your captors that these strange encounters were only in your mind.

But you certainly aren’t going to tell Dr. Gray this.

Instead, you offer him a quick head shake before realizing that it'd probably be more convincing if you actually spoke, no matter how quiet or shaky the reply.  So you do.  “No, sir.  I haven't.”

He's silent again.  He puts the clipboard down on his desk; its clatter is like a gunshot in the quiet of the room, making you jump.  He folds his hands together, his eyes never leaving yours.

“Why do you lie?”

You swallow hard, the tinkling of your straightjacket increasing to an almost rhythmic sound.  His voice, though quiet in timbre, grips you so fiercely, you can almost feel the current of danger sparking to life behind his words.

“Do you remember Doctor Laumei?” he asks.

You force your shoulders into a shrug.  You don't remember him.  By now all of the other doctors’ faces have blurred together.

“Tomorrow,” he continues, “you are being transferred to his wing of the facility.”

“What?” you whisper.  An array of feelings explode within you—shock, fear, liberation, confusion—but one stands in sharp relief from the rest.  It's _grief_ , as if leaving _him_ , your captor, is a loss you couldn’t possibly survive.

“The superintendent of this facility feels you’re not improving, that my treatments aren’t working.  He believes you’ll do better in the hands of someone else.  Someone whose methods are more… modern.  A softer touch.”

 _No_ , you think.  Not someone else!  Not someone you don’t know, no matter _how_ soft the touch!

He gets up.  With deliberate slowness, he starts to walk around the side of the desk towards you, his hand trailing across the spread of papers.  “Dr. Laumei is so very interested in your recovery,” he murmurs.

When he reaches you, he puts a hand under your chin, guiding you to your feet before him.

“What he and the superintendent don’t know is…”. He moves the hair away from your face, his touch electric.  “...I’m _not_ interested in your recovery.  I’m interested in you staying right here, with me.”

You inhale sharply at this revelation and stumble back in surprise, but he doesn’t stop, descending upon you even after your legs hit the front of the desk, stopping your retreat.  You can't help but notice how his eyes, although blue, look considerably darker in the waning light of the room.

“Hysteria is such a brutal, beautiful thing,” he says in a stinging whisper.  “And eased by such brutal, beautiful ways.”

He's cupping your face with both hands when suddenly you feel him grip the hair on the back of your head.  He yanks hard, wrenching your neck to the side and tearing a gasp from your throat.  He lowers his head, teeth grazing against your skin like they're searching for a place to bite, and when he finally finds your lips it’s all over—your legs give out and you collapse backwards onto the desk, his body following yours.  You hear the smashing of ink pots and the whooshing of paper as items are scattered, then he’s bringing his hands up to grasp your face again and grab your hair, holding you tightly.  He kisses you, so deep and rough and full of fervor you can barely focus.  You long to touch him, to be free of your bonds.  To run and for him to catch you, to _take_ you when there’s nothing left for your body to do but submit.

They probably can hear you, the rest of the asylum, and the desire of being happened upon by a nurse or other doctor is strong in your mind.  Let them see what they’ve tried to deny you for so long: the needs of your body, yes, but most of all, the needs of your mind.

But then it would end, you think, and you don’t want it to end.

So lost in sensation, you don’t notice his hand beneath your smock until it's between your legs, its touch far past the stirrings of simple pleasures.  No, this touch was meant to brand you, to sear across your memory, reducing any future touch to mere copies, woeful and inadequate _._   His was a touch that was as cruel as it was giving, and in your desperation you welcomed it all, the beauty, the agony, the break—

But if you thought he’d let you fall apart, you were _wrong_.

There are eyes on you.  Not his, not a nurse’s or a doctor’s.  They’re your own, your reflection in the mirror beside you.  You stare open-mouthed at yourself, confusion eating through your elation, and then the mirror seems to tilt, catching the light in a different way and changing what you see.  You're still on your back, but on a bed, not a desk, and you're wearing strange clothes--the ones from your visions.  Still, the most frightening thing _isn’t_ what you’re wearing or where you are—it’s who you’re with.

 _Pennywise_.

He's there with you in the mirror, one large hand clutching a fistful of your hair and the other slid beneath the waistband of your pants.  You inhale sharply but exhale with a moan—blind to his darkened reflection, Dr. Gray hasn’t paused, and you scrunch your eyes shut, urging yourself to focus solely on what you are feeling.  You're hallucinating again, you _have_ to be, but you won’t let your madness ruin this small moment of cage-free bliss.

But what would madness be if not the ultimate trickster?

You feel a sharp sting against your lower lip, and the pain jogs your memory.  Your lip is bleeding, the wound so small it could be seen simply as an overzealous love nip, but you, cold with recognition, know otherwise.  Your eyes open wide.

He's above you, the man you thought might be your lover, except now there's blood on his lips, and it's _yours_.  As you stare up at him, the blood seems to take on a life of its own, curving upwards from his mouth into the pointed markings of a hunter.  The rest of him is changing, too, and in no time at all the reality you thought you knew has broken into a thousand tiny pieces and you're _back_ —back in Derry, Maine; back in Aunt Betty’s guest room; and back in the arms of a monster.

He’s smiles at you.

“Isn’t this fun, [Y/N]?” he says in a mocking whisper.  “I know I’m excited.  Are you _excited_ , [Y/N]?  What's going to happen next?”

All you can do to answer him is gasp and squirm.  As the last of his illusion leaves your eyes and your scrambled senses fall back into place, you can once again feel his body on top of you.  His hand in your hair grips you so firmly you can hardly move, but it’s his other hand, the one between your legs, two fingers hooked inside you, that you notice the most.  It’s mostly still, but every small shift is enough to make your wishes turn dark and your thoughts forbidden.  He has you caught between his hands, one of pain, the other of pleasure, both able to shatter you with a flick of his wrist.

But if he makes you choose one over the other, you'll die.

You know it now.

“What about… a _bargain_!  You sure do love to bargain, don’t you [Y/N]?”

Both of his hands seem to clench you tighter, and you can't hold back your whimper of yearning, but you quickly try to cover yourself by stammering, “N-no!  I don’t!  Let me go!  Please!”

“Please?” he echoes, but with a teasing question, as if he doesn't quite believe your demands to stop.  But you don’t stop struggling to get away, and in an instant, his mood seems to change.  His hands release you at the same time and he gets up to hover above you, his eyes now complete in their otherness, his lips pulled back over slowly lengthening teeth.  He growls at you and it’s not the growl of an animal this time—it’s unfathomable, a multi-layered chorus of the dead.  And you’ll be joining them soon, you think with a strangled sob.  He’s done with you.  You've defied him too many times.

Now his claws are on you, ripping at you, gripping you through your clothes, and you scream and flail, trying in vain to fight him off.  He tears your shirt off completely, then moves down the bed, still slashing and growling at you, so fast his arms are a blur.  You're riddled with the worst of anticipations, horribly certain you'll feel his claws sink into you at any moment.  He's reached the end of the bed but keeps backing up, taking your half-torn jeans with him.  He's disappeared below the foot of the bed now, and it takes you several moments of panicked breathing and thundering heartbeat to realize that he _hasn't_ scratched you.  He's not harmed you at all, only shredded your clothes to bits, leaving you just in your underwear.

Suddenly, you feel something grab your ankles, dragging you towards the end of the bed until your legs are dangling over it, and you squeak in surprise.

 _Oh no_ , you think.

With deliberate grace and theater, two black-clawed, white-gloved hands rise up to rest on each of your thighs, each finger rhythmically tapping after the other like falling dominoes.  He seems to give you just a moment to breathe a few panicked breaths and clench at the sheet with your hands in anticipation until you feel something wet begin slithering up your inner thigh.  It’s his tongue, and it pushes aside your underwear and finds you before your stunned mind can fully comprehend what is happening.

And you want your mind to be blank.  You don’t want it to start ticking again, to whisper words of reality into your ear.  To remind you of how scared you are (knowing he could bite into you at any moment), and of the loss of your human soul with every sigh that leaves your lips, piece by woebegotten piece.

But if your mind had been more in control, maybe then you’d remember who you were allowing to steal taste after taste: yes, a murderous brute who cares not at all about your pleasure, but one who _also_ happens to thoroughly enjoy being a tricky little shit.  His tongue is moving firmly against you now, so fast and sure, you close your eyes, ready to submit yourself solely to your ever-increasing ardor, but then you feel one of his hands let go of your thigh and slide down your leg.  Fingers wrap around your calf, on the exact spot where he broke your leg both times, and even though your leg’s whole again, there’s something about the pressure he’s putting on it that sends a stinging reminder of pain through you.  It causes you to hiss and let out a moan, your body so tight with rapturous tension, you know you are close to finding your end.

Except at the very last second, he’s backing off, slowing his pace to a still pleasurable but incredibly frustrating misdirection.  It’s absolute torture, the way he gets you so close but then eases back, and you writhe and whimper on the bed, the back of your mind marveling at how quickly things can turn into the wrong kind of pain.  He does this so many times it feels like an eternity of his teasing, and you find yourself on the verge of tears in your frustration.

And for once, you find yourself hating _him_ more than you hate yourself.

When he stops completely, at first you don’t even notice, too busy whimpering wretchedly as your body continues to ring with biting sensitivity.  He chuckles lowly, and you feel the vibration run up your leg, causing you to finally lift your head.  Now he’s resting his cheek against your thigh, looking at you not with a smirk but with an alluring intensity that seems to steal some of your anger along with your breath.  You blink.  Have his eyes always been blue?

He nuzzles against your thigh, tickling you, and your hands involuntarily clench at the bed sheet again.  You bite your lip, once more feeling confused over how a monster could be both adorably child-like and bewitchingly attractive.

Maybe it’s his voice.  “I can give you what you want,” he says in the most dangerously tantalizing whisper.  “But what have _you_ to give _me_ that I have not already claimed?”

Or maybe it’s his words—you blush at their implications, then feel yourself start to panic again.  One of his hands has begun gently kneading your thigh, while the fingers of the other slowly circle your hip bone, inching ever closer to your center but never fully touching it, and desire explodes within you so much, you begin to think you _would_ do anything to find your satisfaction with him.

But you don’t say this aloud, and suddenly he’s climbing on top of you again… only this time, he flops down onto your chest and folds his fingers into a bridge that he proceeds to rest his chin on, all the while looking down at you with (you almost can’t believe it) the largest of puppy dog eyes.  “Well?” he says sweetly.

When you continue to just stare at him, he raises an index finger excitedly.  “Oooh, I know!  _Jimmy_.”

He says it with a smile, but it’s no longer child-like—it’s full of razor-sharp teeth, and you blanch at him, your mouth dropping open in alarm.

“No!” you say sharply.  “We had a deal!”

Pennywise, back to tilting his head coyly at you, shrugs casually.  “We can make a new one.”

“ _No_ ,” you breathe.  “No.  You can go ahead and kill me now.   I’ll never do it.  _Never_.”

“A child, then,” he says amicably, as if you're simply trading cards of Garbage Pail Kids during recess.  “Any child.”

“ _No_.  Read my mind,” you say, almost savagely. “You know I mean it.”

He’s pursing his lips at you, annoyance swirling brightly in his eyes, but when you only continue to glare at him defiantly, he climbs off of you and stomps to the corner in a huff, his back to you and his arms crossed.  You sit up, staring at him curiously.  He’s taken to muttering angrily to himself in a language you’ve never heard but whose meaning you can probably guess (it's obvious he is _not_ very happy with you at the moment). You look down at yourself, remembering with a start you're wearing nothing but your underwear, and you pull the sheet up to cover yourself, the fire that was roaring within you mere moments ago completely burnt to embers.  You look down the hallway again, feeling neither excited nor scared this time at the idea of running.  In fact, you don’t feel much at all.

But a calm, almost soothing voice interrupts your reverie.  “Jimmy would do it.  To save himself.  A life for a life.”

Your head whips around.  The clown’s body hasn’t moved, but his chin is to his shoulder, half-buried in his ruff, his head rotated a little too far towards you to be natural, and he’s peering at you intently, all traces of anger or annoyance gone from his face.

“He’d, what?” you say incredulously.  “Sacrifice someone to save his—No.  He wouldn’t.”  You actually find yourself laughing at the ridiculousness of the idea.  “He’s a good kid.  He would _never_.  Try again.”

Strangely, this still doesn't rile him.  Instead, he moves smoothly towards you and bends over the bed, his arms coming down on both sides of you and his face level with yours.  “You’re right.  Not that.  Something else.”  He grins at you again, showing off all of his drool-slicked teeth.  “ _An eye for an eye_.”

You frown at him.  “For... revenge?  No, he wouldn’t do that either,” you reply with a firm head shake.

“He would.  I even know who,” Pennywise says, cheerfully.  “ _Spencer Jaxson_.”

Spencer Jaxson?  You vaguely recognize the name as a senior who goes to Jimmy’s school.  You believe you’ve passed by him and his friends riding their bikes through the neighborhood a time or two.  Something black and ugly is starting to form in your chest, deepening your frown.  “What do you mean?” you say slowly.

He's so close, the deep blue of his eyes seem to consume your vision, and when he whispers enticingly, his voice is so far off, you barely pay attention to his words, only the feelings they ignite.  _“Want to see?”_

You know you shouldn't say yes, that this is just another trick meant to spur you ever closer to submitting to him.  But your heart is now filled with so much unease, you find yourself ignoring the warning lights blinking distantly at you through the mists of your mind and nodding cautiously instead.

“What was that?” Pennywise teases jovially, holding a hand up to his ear.

“Yes,” you say, firmer this time.  “I want to see.”

He straightens, and maybe there’s a knowing smirk on his face but you barely notice it, your body flooded with so much nervous anticipation, you think you might be sick.  Reaching out, he taps a finger right between your eyes.  You feel a strange sort of pulling sensation, then your eyes roll up into your head and you sag forward.  You hear Pennywise start to whistle, then he starts to sing, his jaunty words the last thing you hear:

"Hangman, hangman, hangman  
Slack your rope awhile.  
I think I see my father  
Ridin' many a mile.

Father, did you bring any silver?  
Father, did you bring any gold,  
Or did you come to see me  
Hangin' from the gallows pole?

‘No, I didn't bring any silver,  
No I didn't bring any gold.  
I just come to see you  
Hangin' from the gallows pole…’

O the prickly bush, the prickly bush,  
It pricked my heart full sore;  
If ever I get out of the prickly bush,  
I'll never get in any more…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, okay, this has turned out to be much longer than I originally planned... though I'm pretty certain the next chapter will be the last. Also, if you're tired of the asylum stuff, don't worry, we won't be going back there for a long time (or at all).
> 
> Anyways, sorry this update took so long. Parts of this chapter gave me a lot of trouble and I'm not quite sure I like all of it yet..  
> But thanks so much for sticking with me through all this craziness. I know I can get wordy sometimes (or all the time), lol... And reviews are always much appreciated - they can really help the muse out. :-)
> 
> The folk song Pennywise sings at the end is "The Maid Freed From The Gallows," also known as "The Gallows Tree" (and several other names).


	3. Bargain Not With Monsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I had to bump Jimmy's age up from ten to twelve.

There’s a chill in the air and satin against your skin.  The smell of blood and death would make you gag if you could still rely on your senses, but you can’t anymore, a small miracle.

There’s an arm under your head, the crook of an elbow.  Legs against yours, shifting ever so slightly.  A hand against your cheek, tender, wiping the blood away.  You’re being cradled, pressed to a hard, warm chest, and there's a sturdiness there, a sense of safety.  Despite everything that has just happened, you can't help but feel a traitorous pull of comfort when he holds you like this, like a lover.

But he isn’t one.

Your breath has been whistling out of you at a rapid pace, ravaged by terror and screams--but now it slows.  You look up at him.  “Monsters both,” you whisper, freeing the words to the wind, making them real--but he says nothing.  Your eyelids droop, heavy with ever-creeping regret, and when they finally close, the last thing you feel is a tear slipping down your cheek and the soft brush of an upturned nail, catching it.

And when the darkness swoops up to take you, he is there, saying nothing.

Always nothing.

****

Two hours earlier, your eyes open.

Immediately, your mind starts to scream.  _IDIOT, IDIOT, IDIOT_ , it seems to say, DEPLORABLE, RIDICULOUS, MAD!  You don’t even attempt to shush it as you slowly sit up and take in your surroundings.  Aunt Betty’s house is gone.  You’re somewhere else entirely, the exact place you should never, _ever,_ go: the house of the devil. 

You're standing in the yard of a building so derelict, it can't help but give off the creepiest of vibes.  It’s a two story house in a somewhat Victorian style, and it probably would have looked quite lovely in its early days.  Now it feels as if it’s barely holding itself together.  The wooden slats running up and down the length of its frame are so dark with rot, they’re practically black.  Even the dead, half-bent tree in the yard looks like it’s given up, succumbing itself to the heavy, dragging weight of decay.  There are other houses around you, a whole neighborhood’s worth, but all you seem to see is this one.

It must be the Neibolt House.  Jimmy’s mentioned it a time or two, mostly when recounting the youthful games his classmates liked to play.  When it came to the Neibolt House, the games were always tests of courage: who dared to stand unmoving in the yard, back to the house and arms outstretched like an offering, entirely vulnerable; who was brave enough to run up and touch the doorknob; or the ultimate test, who could stay inside the longest before succumbing to fear and running out.  Apparently, this was the favorite pastime of a group of senior boys who went to the local high school.  Except, according to Jimmy, it wasn’t _them_ who actually played.  They preferred younger, more unwilling participants, and upon hearing this, your hands had unconsciously balled themselves into fists.  There were bullies in every town, it seemed, and they were all the same.

You wish you had the power to stop them all.

Your childhood had been riddled with them.  Being a child of divorce made you different, and being different meant being noticed.  You endured taunts, beatings, pranks--the works--and it was so much and went on for so long you were practically forced to make a choice: fight back or suffer the worst kind of death, a living one.

You chose to fight back and the torment lessened, but death somehow found you anyways, surrounding you with a darkness so strong your every breath, your every footfall, was tinged with it.  Anger spells and depressive episodes would become your new normal, but you would soon learn that there was a state of being that was even worse: when those dark feelings were _quiet_.  You could still breathe and see and think and move, _but_ \--the numbness was always there, below the surface, threatening to swallow you whole.  The “deadening,” you liked to call it.  The very worst of pains.

It had been too late for you…

But it _wasn't_ too late for Jimmy.

Predator, prey--so far, Jimmy had been neither.

At least that’s what he's always told you.

There’s a crease between your eyebrows as you look the house up and down.  By now your rational mind has stopped its screaming, resigned to your nonsense, your apparent lack of self-preservation.  Opening the door to this… _whatever_ this was, letting the monster walk right into your mind—it’s the most insane thing you've ever done.

But you had to do it.  You had to know what Pennywise was talking about.

When it came to your loved ones, you’d do anything, _lose_ everything, even your mind.

And besides, you think darkly to yourself, you’re nearly there anyways—what is one more knot on the noose of madness?

You’re just starting to wonder if you’re supposed to go into the house when you hear it: “Get up, ginger.”

It’s a braggart of a voice, young in years but with an attractive confidence that is somehow as reassuring as it is mocking, as if those within earshot deserved to hear its crowing, or its taunts--

And it had come from the back of the house.

You take off immediately, your feet moving before your mind does.  The grass beneath your shoes is brittle but you don’t hear a sound.  You don’t feel much, either, and your movements through the yard affect nothing.  You are a phantom skimming along the seams of this memory, a silent intruder into someone else’s dream.  But not a nightmare, you think firmly.  This _won’t_ be a nightmare pulled from the depths of your young cousin’s mind.  That isn’t even an option, and if it somehow _does_ turn out to be one, the clown is lying. You’re _sure_ of it.  And so you barrel around the corner of the house, your adrenaline fully charged and ready, as if your body somehow knows something your mind can't—or won’t—accept.

The first thing you see is a shock of red hair.  It's Jimmy, crouched on his hands and knees, eyes shut and nose low to the ground.  This surprises you, but it only takes a second for a much brighter red to eclipse your vision: a smear of blood across the knuckles of the boy standing in front of him.

He’s tall, attractive, and casually dressed.  One hip is cocked lazily to the side, and every so often he runs a relaxed hand through his ear-length brown hair (a hairstyle noticeably different from the gaudy mullets and mohawks of the day).  He’s fit but it’s not overdone, no more than any football-playing senior would be, one who loved the game (or the fame) but didn’t intend to play past high school.  His eyes are bright, assured, and rimmed with eyelashes, but there’s something else in them, too: a coolness, stopping just shy of being openly derisive.  With barely a glance you can tell: this kid is no fool.  His voice, his clothes, his mannerisms--all of it seems to complete the confident picture he has painted for himself, one that is sure to be popular with the impressionable youth of the town.

And he has Jimmy’s blood on his hand.

With a yell of fury, you run towards him, arms outstretched and fingers gripping the air, ready to choke the life out of his throat.  But you fall straight through him, landing with a muffled “Oof!” onto the grass at his side.

Which gives you an up close view of Spencer Jaxson’s shoe as it collides with Jimmy’s stomach.

“I said _get up_.”

Jimmy’s lying in the fetal position, arms curled around his midsection, but as you watch, jaw hanging loose in dismay, he wipes a line of blood from his nose and slowly gets to his feet.  Your heart seems to constrict with every small grunt or wince of pain he makes.

But once straightened, he looks Spencer straight in the eye.  “Leave me alone, Spencer.”  His voice is weak but you can tell it’s not from pain or fear—there’s a sad airiness behind the words, like a resigned sigh.  How long has this been going on?

It’s Jimmy who tells you—but not with words.  A second before Spencer’s hand smacks across his face you see Jimmy brace himself.  Even though he knows it’s coming, he doesn't duck the blow--he takes it, and when he falls back unto the ground, the whole of the backyard seems to open up to you, your stunned, unblinking gaze radiating outwards from Jimmy’s prone form like radar.

Behind Spencer are two other boys, their bodies and clothes nearly identical.  Football players.  Seniors.  Matching smirks.  They’re Spencer’s friends.  But they’re not alone.  One has his arms wrapped around a smaller boy whose glasses are skewed sideways across his face and whose sandy hair is a disheveled halo around his head.  You recognize him immediately: it’s Evan, one of Jimmy’s friends who you’ve only met a time or two.  You remember him being bookish and sweet, maybe a little too trusting, but Jimmy’s spoken fondly of him.  Little clouds of chilled air are puffing steadily from Evan’s mouth as he breathes.  You search the younger boy’s face.  There don’t seem to be any bruises there… yet.

Spencer’s other friend is sitting on the grass and looking very comfortable indeed—but maybe the smaller boy he’s sitting on had something to do with that.  You peer sharply at the pair, unable to make out who the younger boy is (since all you can see are a pair of skinny legs and sneakers), but then Spencer starts to speak again and your attention jumps back up to him.

“First of all, it's Jax,” he says and you want to roll your eyes.  High school boys and their stupid nicknames.  “Second of all…”  He turns to his friends, his arms spread wide.  “Don’t you remember what we learned in history class today?”  When his friends only stare blankly at him, Spencer snorts and rolls his eyes.  “Imbeciles,” you hear him whisper under his breath.  He crouches and grabs the hair on the back of Jimmy’s head, giving it a yank.  The other hand slides behind his back, and when it emerges, you see the glint of a silver lighter between his fingers.  He flips the lighter on with a flourish and peers down at it, the light illuminating his wicked grin.  “ _Witches_ ,” he says, answering his own question.

But Jimmy doesn’t shrink back from the flame.  “Oh, I get it,” he deadpans.  “I’m a witch.  _Hmph_.  Not bad, I guess.  Better than last time when the most creative insult out of your mouth was ‘fag.’”  He flicks his eyes up at Spencer, smiling a wicked sneer of his own.  “Has someone been reading?”

Spencer straightens, his face now a cold mask.  Like all bullies, he hated to be mocked.  “Fucking ginger,” he says, his voice tight with anger.  “Ugly as sin.  Ass for a face.”  But it’s all for naught: the smirk hasn’t left Jimmy’s lips.

So Spencer hits him again.  “Goddam fairy!” growls the older boy.

But Jimmy only shakes himself with an exaggerated “whew!” and then seems to nod in agreement.  “Yes, that’s right, redheads have been associated with fairies, good, good.”

“Son of Judas.  Betrayer—“

“Oooh, nice one,” Jimmy says in mock appreciation.  “You _have_ been reading!”

“Mutant—”

“Because red hair is a mutation,” Jimmy interjects, voice dripping with cheerful scorn.  “Not bad, not bad.  A little cliché—”

Spencer’s smack is harder this time, the sound ringing throughout the yard.  “Fucking fag!” he yells down at him.

“Jimmy, for the love of all that is holy, SHUT UP.”

As soon as this new, slightly muffled voice hits the air, all heads turn towards the source, but you recognize it instantly.  It’s Alex, the boy currently being used as a seat by Spencer’s large mullet-wearing friend.  Having been friends since first grade, Alex and Jimmy were brothers in every way but blood.  Whenever you’d see them together (which was often, since they were together practically every day during the summer), you’d sometimes find yourself smiling and sighing wistfully.  You wish you had a friendship like theirs when you were younger.  You are not surprised to see Alex here, standing (well, in spirit, at least) next to his friends.

You hear a groan.  It’s Jimmy, propping himself back up on his arms, but when he raises his head, your eyes widen.  He’s... _smiling_ , but it's a tainted smile, a gaping rictus grin.  So much blood has dripped from his nose it’s practically stained his teeth red, and he’s made no move to wipe it away.  There’s a strange glint in his eyes—a streak of pain, a flash of defiance—and that combined with the crazy grin almost makes him look demonic.  You feel a sudden twinge of pride.  He’s a fighter, just like you were.

“Don’t worry, Alex,” he says, continuing his facade of cheerful mocking.  “This is great, really.  Now I don’t have to study for the test—aarrgh!”

The kick that hits Jimmy’s midsection is fierce, and you involuntarily take two steps towards him.  He’s curled on his side again, only this time, he’s wheezing, tears of pain sparkling in the corners of his eyes.  His nose is still bleeding profusely, but at least it doesn’t appear to be broken…

Still, the sight of him lying there, blood all down his front--it’s a terrible thing to see.  Already your eyes are pulling themselves away--but it’s too late.  What you've seen will never leave you; it's been burned into your brain… right next to a painful memory of your _own_.

You remember it all.  The sharp crack of a fist hitting your nose; the pain that burst behind your eyes; the strange saltiness of the blood-- _your_ blood--on your lips.  But worst of all had been the _names_ : “bastard,” “retard,” “slut,” “unwanted,” “unloved,” “nothing…”  Unconsciously, you raise your hand to lightly rub the bump on your nose, a nervous tick.  Eventually, your nose had healed, but the pain from those taunts remained, floating to the fore of your mind every once and awhile to remind you of who you really were.

And who were you, really?

 _Nothing_ , you think automatically.  _Nothing… to no one._

You feel tears well in the corners of your eyes.  Twelve.  You were only twelve when the attack happened.  And here it is again, happening right in front of you like some fucking family legacy.

Slowly, you rise to your feet, your knees knocking together.  Your hands are shaking, too, and so you ball them into fists.  You feel the sharp sting of your nails breaking skin, but the pain doesn't help.  You want to reach out, to grab, rip, punch, strangle, _feel something_ —

Spencer is speaking.  “You’ve got a smart mouth,” he drawls, brimming with confidence again now that he has the upper hand.  “Maybe washing it out with _gasoline_ will make you rethink talking back to your betters.”

He nods to the boy currently holding Evan.  “W-wait, what?” Evan stutters as his arms are released, then he gasps and seems to inhale a mouthful of grass as his captor gives his head a strong push into the ground before walking off.  This causes the seated boy to laugh, and he proceeds to hop forcefully up and down on his rear a few times, causing his seat--Alex--to wince and mutter a few pain-fuelled profanities.  What is going to happen?

All you can do is watch.

You can do nothing when Spencer’s goon returns with a dirty green tank, its contents sloshing ominously, stirring like a hurricane caught in a bottle.

You can do nothing when Spencer grabs Jimmy by the shirt and hauls him to his feet.

And you do nothing when Spencer grabs Jimmy by the jaw--overcoming his struggles with ease--and tries to pour the gasoline into his mouth.  You suck in a surprised--and outraged--breath.  If things weren’t serious before, they were definitely serious now.  If the gasoline got into Jimmy’s eyes he could be blinded, or if he got any of it on him, even the smallest flame would--

In Spencer's grip, Jimmy has his eyes and mouth scrunched tightly and he’s fighting, wriggling and kicking, but the older boy is strong.  Familiar-sounding taunts fill your ears while despair fills your eyes—Spencer’s friends are wild with vicious glee, whooping and urging their friend on, but the rest of the street is silent, empty of help.  There’s a tang of fear in the air, a slimy film that is full enough to sip and horrid enough to choke on, and you almost gag yourself when you realize that you were wrong: this _isn’t_ Jimmy’s memory—it’s _Pennywise’s_.  And oh, how he must have loved it.  Your eyes dart around, suddenly full of a grim anticipation that you’ll see his savage, smiling face hiding in the bushes or looking down at you from a window—

But then something happens that drives the clown from your mind.

“Oh my God,” you whisper.

Spencer has tipped the entire contents of the tank over Jimmy.

“Oh my God, Spencer!  What the fuck?!” yells Alex.

But Spencer ignores him.  He cocks his hip out again, looking relaxed as he watches Jimmy cough and sputter on the ground at his feet.  He takes out a cigarette from his pocket.  He sighs.  “Oh Jimmy.  If only you had kept your stupid mouth shut.”

A glint in his hand: _the lighter_.

You watch as Spencer brings the cigarette to his mouth.  He lights it and seems to take a long, contented drag.

You see Jimmy finally open his eyes.  His face tilts up, and there are no more smiles on his mouth or jokes on his tongue.  There’s just fear, plain and simple, a look that should never cross a child’s face, and then Spencer is speaking again, lofty and bored like a magistrate issuing a final judgment.

“And Luther proclaimed, _‘I should have no compassion on these witches; I would burn all of them.’”_

He flicks his wrist; the cigarette leaves his fingers.  You watch it fly through the air.  And just before it hits its mark, you close your eyes.

There's silence, as tight as a bowstring, and then—

Laughter, piercing, like barbs in your skin.  You open your eyes.

Spencer and his goons are practically doubled over, they are laughing so hard.  Now the street next to the house isn’t empty, it’s _full_ —full of kids with backpacks, all gaping towards you, and there in the front is a girl with green eyes and a red bow in her hair.

“Jimmy?” she says hesitantly.

And you don’t want to look at him.  You don’t want to see it there in his eyes, the pain, the embarrassment, the sadness, the _hate_ —but your eyes lower towards his as if connected by string.

He’s sitting there in the grass, slowly lowering the arm he had thrown up in front of his face in a vain attempt to protect himself.  He looks down, noticing the large wet stain on the front of his pants.  The crowd of kids begin to laugh.

Lying in the grass a few inches from his knee is the cigarette.  It’s fake.

Spencer and his friends are still cutting up, pointing and sneering.  “Did you see his face?” one of them says as they begin to saunter away, hands on each other’s shoulders, patting each other's backs.  The other kids are laughing and walking away, too, pulling the girl with the red bow with them.  She looks concerned but doesn’t say anything.  Soon, she’s turning away with the rest.

Once the crowd is gone, Alex runs forward and drops to his knees next to Jimmy.  “Oh my God, are you alright?”

Jimmy doesn’t look up.  All you can see is his forehead and the tops of his ears, still red with shame.

“We need to get him clean,” Evan says as he approaches.  He looks around.  “There!  A hose.”

As the boys scramble to work the hose, you crouch in front of Jimmy.  You search his face, your gaze like a laser, probing, scanning, going deeper until you find it, glinting in the depths of his eyes like pieces of flint: _the deadening_.

What could be done with the soul-crushing realization that the world is ugly and unsafe?  That the shedding of childhood is a violent thing?  That no matter how good you try to be, how straight a path you try to walk, evil could still find you, _would_ find you, in some way or another?

Tears blur your vision.  “Oh, Jimmy…” you whisper, wishing you could touch him.  “I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.”

A torrent of water falls over his head, causing him to cough.  Alex and Evan are back with the hose.

“I really thought he was going to do it,” Evan murmurs, as if to himself.

“Don’t rub your eyes,” says Alex.

“I _know_ ,” Jimmy replies, an edge to his voice.  There’s silence.

“Is your skin burning?” asks Evan.

Jimmy shakes his head.  Water droplets fly.  Then… a growl.  “Fucking useless, both of you.”

Both Alex and Evan look stricken.  “We…” Alex begins hesitantly.  “We tried.  They… they were just too strong.  We couldn't—”

“Do anything,” Jimmy finishes.  He looks up at them, his eyes like black holes.  “Yeah, I know.”  Slowly, he gets to his feet.

“Jimmy—” Alex begins.

“Just forget it!” he snaps.  He turns to Evan.  “Your notes,” he says sharply, “for biology.  Give them to me.”

“But I need them to—”

“Just fucking give them to me!”

Evan hastens to obey.  Jimmy’s dead-eyed gaze flicks over to Alex, and you think you see the dark-haired boy flinch.  “And yours from English,” Jimmy demands.  Alex stares open-mouthed at him for a moment before swinging his backpack around and pulling out some pieces of paper.  Silently, Jimmy snatches it out of his hands.  He picks up his backpack.  And without even a backwards glance, he walks off.

Now you think the memory is sure to end, but surprisingly, it doesn't, so you follow him, trailing like a ghost, stepping where he steps.  The smell of gasoline has dwindled, but still it’s there, lingering under his skin.  You imagine it filling his lungs, tingeing every breath.

He’s reached your aunt’s house.  She won’t be home until later, so he finds the spare key and lets himself in.  Once he gets to his room, he steps over discarded toys and sits at his desk.  He fishes into his backpack, finds the notes he had taken from his friends.  He seems to look at them for just a moment before balling the paper up and throwing it across the room.  It lands in the trash can with a soft thud.  You bite your lip, feeling apprehensive.  The notes… he didn’t need them.  Of course he didn’t, you realize suddenly, he’s an A student.  He wouldn’t need another student’s notes.  Then why…?

He’s sitting back in his chair, his gaze distant.  He sits like this for so long, the sun has set for the day, taking the light with it.  You hear a door slam outside.  Aunt Betty is home.

She appears in the doorway, smiling and warm, like always.

“Why are you sitting in the dark?” she asks by way of greeting.  She reaches forward to flip the light switch up, but the room stays dark.  “Oh, the light’s out.  Well, why didn’t you change it, silly?  The bulbs are under the sink in the kitchen.”

Jimmy rises without a word.  He’s halfway down the stairs when Aunt Betty calls his name.  She pokes her head over the railing.  She’s still smiling softly, but now you notice a slight crease between her eyebrows.  “Jimmy?  Is everything okay?  You seem quiet.”

He looks up at her.  For a moment, his face is nowhere, blank, like a doll’s.  Then he matches her smile.  “I’m fine, Mom.”

“Your clothes are wet.”

“Oh, I… fell into a puddle.”

“A puddle?  You’re drenched.”

“It was a big puddle.”  He pauses, thinking a bit.  Then, with a lighthearted shrug and a loving tease to his voice: “Actually, it was Alex, he pushed me.  He’s such an asshole—”

“ _Nuh-uh_ , no cussing.”

“Sorry,” he replies with a rueful grin.

There's a pause.  You eye the pair.  This could've been any other sweet exchange between mother and son, but, of course, it wasn't.  And you weren't the only one who knew.

“If anything was wrong…” begins Aunt Betty slowly, “you'd tell me…  Wouldn't you?”

Jimmy doesn’t miss a beat; his reply is playfully annoyed, like any boy of twelve would be towards an overprotective parent.  If the circumstances had been any different you would have admired his acting ability.  “ _Of course_ , Mom.”

When he turns and walks down the rest of the stairs, you don’t follow.  You look at your aunt.  She’s staring at the spot Jimmy has just left, her eyes glassy, like a mirror.

“Oh, Aunt Betty,” you whisper to her, “why didn’t you tell me you knew?”

Your eyelids fall, and when they open again, Aunt Betty is gone.  You’re back in the guest bed, fully clothed, laying on top of the covers, as if you had never left.

Slowly, you sit up.  There’s a ringing in your ears, a buildup in your chest--the urge to move, to do something.  And yet there behind it all lurks something else: _the deadening_ , waiting in the shadows like a specter, poised and ready to consume you whole.  It makes you want to die, to end it all.

And now, for the rest of his life, Jimmy will feel it too.

So you sit there, staring at nothing.  You sit there for so long, the sun has started to set, lengthening the shadows in the corners of your room.  Finally, your lips move, your words slicing through the room like a scythe, a falling crescent moon.

_"I'll kill him.”_

And without a second thought, you get up, walk downstairs, and leave the house.

****

Your strides are quick, your shoulders, stiff.  Your breathing is heavy but not labored, and your heart’s an ostinato, urging you onwards with it’s loud, dynamic beat.  But you're not scared or worried or excited.  You’re _determined_.

There’s something crumpled in your hand.  It’s a page from a phone book, and you stop in the middle of the sidewalk and smooth it out.  There, in tiny lettering: _The Jaxson’s, 17 Neibolt Street._ How convenient.

In front of you is a house.  It’s a small one-story with a faded blue door and a chain-link fence that surrounds an overgrown yard.  You adjust the neck of your shirt, tugging it lower as you walk up the path to the door, stepping over crushed beer cans and discarded pieces of trash.  You take a deep breath, steeling yourself, and ring the doorbell.

Nothing.

You ring the doorbell again, firmer this time.

_No one._

A hole seems to open up in your chest.

But then… _a_ _voice_ : “What do _you_ want?”

Except it’s not Spencer _or_ one of his parents.  Standing behind you on the sidewalk is one of Spencer’s friends, the bigger one with the mullet who had enjoyed using Alex as a human beanbag chair.  The mere sight of him seems to charge your adrenaline, your skin bristling angrily, but you force yourself to calm down.

Casually, you toss your hair over your shoulder, exposing more of the skin on your neck and chest.  “I’m looking for Spence—Jax.  Is he home?”

And to your eternal disappointment, he shakes his head.  “He’s at camp.  Green Mountain.”

You wrench your voice into some semblance of friendliness.  “Oh?  Will he be gone all summer?”

The boy lets out a derisive snort.  “Yeah, it’s ‘ _summer_ camp’.  Right there in the name.”

The corners of your mouth dip into a frown before you can stop them.  Asshole.  Fucking high school boys, _so_ immature.  “And why aren’t you at camp?  Isn’t everyone else?”

“Failed too many classes this semester,” he answers, his eyes as emotionless as his voice.  “Parents said I didn’t deserve to go.  Fuck if I care.”  He blinks and seems to focus on you more.  “Who are you?”

“I’m [Y/N].  You?”

“Tucker.  Did you just move here?”

But you’re so distracted, you barely hear his question.  You want to clench your fists.  Throw your head back and scream.  Spencer isn’t here.  He isn’t even in the same state.  Now what will you do with the thoughts swarming in your head, attacking your rational mind like leeches?

“ _Hey_.  Did you hear me?”

“I _heard_ you like to hang out in that house at the end of the street,” you say with half an eyeroll.  “The one that looks like it belongs to Buffalo Bill.”

“Who?”

“You know, Silence Of The--”  You sigh.  _High schoolers._   “Nevermind.  Actually...” you begin again, your voice conversational now, “I heard you liked forcing younger kids into playing Chicken there.”

Tucker sneers, looking pleased with himself.  “Yeah, you should see their faces.”

 _I have_ , you think darkly.  “Kids like Jimmy Brenton.  Does that name sound familiar?”

He's quiet for a couple of seconds, and you feel another rush of outrage.  How _dare_ he not know who Jimmy is!

“Oh yeah, the ginger,” Tucker says finally.  He smiles, callous and smug.  “One time me and Jax beat him up so bad, he missed school for two days.”

 _Did he,_ _now?_   There’s something in your chest again, sparking wildly to life.  It’s anticipation, as if you were standing right on the edge of something, something important, the ending of one thing and the beginning of another.  It reminds you of earlier, when you were standing on the rock ledge in the clown’s illusion.  Your decision had been wrong then; you had leaped into the abyss expecting to be caught, but you weren't.

He didn't catch you then.

But he will this time.  He will.  You _know_ it.

You fix Tucker with a look of ice.  “He’s my cousin.”

And you are rewarded by the sight of face twisted up with alarm—but it’s not enough.

So you relax, your icy stare melting into a simpering smirk.  “I fucking hate him.  He’s such a pansy.  He needs a good ass kicking every once and awhile.”

When the muscles in Tucker’s face relax in relief, you approach him.  “I hate when my mom makes me visit him.  There’s fuck all to do here.  It’s boring.”  Casually, you lean over the chain-link fence, and Tucker’s eyes slip down your shirt.  “That’s why I was looking for Jax.  I heard he knows how to have... _fun_.”  You flick your eyes down and then up again, fixing him with the look that never fails you.  “Say, aren’t you a friend of his?”

The leer that crawls across his face is one you’ve seen many times before.  “Yeah.  And I know how to have a good time.”  He reaches forward, and just as the tips of his fingers slide across the side of your face, you nimbly dodge around them, stepping further down the sidewalk with a girlish giggle.  Then you are hit with inspiration so ironic you barely hold back a real laugh.

“See, what I really want is…”  Still smiling, you catch your bottom lip between your teeth for a moment before continuing on.  “I want to be _scared_.  I want to feel my heart _racing_.  I want hands to grab me, to sneak up behind me in the dark, throw me screaming against a wall.”  You saunter back towards him and stop just a little too close for normal comfort.  “It’s such a _thrill_ , isn’t it?  Being scared?”

He's still leering down at you, and you can feel your wide inviting smile start to strain with impatience.

_Come on, you big lug, put two and two together._

Finally...

“I know where we could go,” he says confidently, and you grin to yourself as you follow him down the street.

****

You weren’t surprised to learn that the Neibolt House is just as run-down on the inside as it is on the outside.  Everywhere you look are the physical manifestations of time and neglect: walls of dark, moldy wood; broken pieces of furniture; all manner of filthy debris on the floor and strange smells in the air.  Soon both you and Tucker have crowns of cobweb and lungs full of dust.

After walking idly around a few empty rooms (and coyly dodging an ass-grab or two), you find yourself in the sad remains of a kitchen.  Broken table pieces and chairs litter the floor, but nothing particularly strange or unnerving jumps out at you.  But then you hear a sound like a rock being kicked across the floor, and you turn.  Off to the side of the kitchen are some stairs.  Before you even realize it, you find yourself stepping down them and into a dark, low-ceilinged room.  You look around.  It’s like you’re in a basement of some kind: the walls are lined with fieldstones, there aren’t any windows, and it’s so cold you can see your breath.  You hear another small sound, and it draws you further into the room.  That’s when you see it.  A _well_.  A large rock-strewn well, larger than any well you’ve ever seen.  Suddenly curious, you walk over to it and peer into its depths.  After only a few feet, your vision plunges completely into blackness.  What was a well doing here?  You’ve never heard of a well being in a house before.

“Helloooo!” you yell into the well.  It takes a long moment for your echo to fly back up to you.

“Pretty crazy, huh?” Tucker says as he slides up next to you.

“It's really deep.”

“Bet you like it deep,” he says with a filthy grin and inwardly, you groan.  Just when you think you couldn't hate him any more….  There’s a rope hanging over the side of the well, disappearing into the darkness, and you grab it and tug, testing its stability.  You look back at Tucker and slip on your best come-hither smile.  “Oh, I _do_.”  And without waiting for a response, you swing your legs over the edge of the well and start to climb down.

“Wait,” Tucker says, surprised, “you want to go down there?”

“Yeah.  Where’s your sense of adventure?  Besides, think how _dark_ and _scary_ it’ll be down there.”

He’s still staring down at you in disbelief, but just like you predicted, he caves, grabbing the rope with an eye roll.  You can just imagine what he is thinking ( _“What I have to do to get some tail around here, grumble, grumble, grumble…”_ ) and your flirty smile becomes a grim one.  _Yes_ , you agree solemnly to yourself, it was ridiculous what one had to do to find some entertainment in this tiny mess of a town; what one had to do to _feel_ something, anything, even if it meant hurting the innocent.  Once you reach the bottom, you can't quite hitch your bright smile back into place, so you take off immediately, walking with an ease that seems to suggest, although absurdly, that you always spend time traipsing ‘round the sewers.  You hear Tucker's loud footsteps splashing behind you, but you don't turn around, stepping through doors here and rooms there until you feel a chill in the air coming from the room up ahead.  With a small grunt, you pull open the large metal door and step inside… except you quickly come to a stop, your eyes following the walls of the room up and up and up...

“Oh my God,” you whisper.

It's the cistern, a cold, echoing cavern of a room, but the thing that’s captured your attention is a looming mass of what looked to be broken, discarded children’s toys.  It rose up in the middle of the room, a monument of innocence lost, terrible in its bleakness, and that wasn't even the _worst_ of it.  There were _bodies_ floating near the peak of the mountain.  You squint at them, trying to make sense of what you see, but it’s unmistakable: they are _children’s_ bodies, floating above the broken remnants of their short lives.  Your heart seems to clench, the horror burying so deep inside your chest, you feel like you might never be free of it.  You hear footsteps coming up behind you, and you whirl around.

It's Tucker, and just like before, the sight of his cruel, uncaring face makes you seethe with anger--but not for him.  For someone else entirely: _yourself_.

What the fuck are you doing?  What has driven you to do this, what thoughts have spiraled so out of control; what emotions, what _pain_ has become so great, the only path you see before you is revenge, _an eye for an eye?_

“We have to get out of here,” you say hurriedly to Tucker, pushing him with your hands.  “We… we have to go.”

He frowns.  “ _You're_ the one who wanted to come here, remember?”

You wave an incredulous arm towards the center of the room.  “Do you not _see_ that?”

“See what?”

You gape at him.  _He doesn't see it.  Oh shit, shit--_

You all but shove your whole body into him.  “C’mon, _move_!”

But he doesn’t budge—except to push you back into the wall with a gross, “Where you goin’, baby?”

“No--get off me--”

Being almost twice your size, he ignores your struggles and wraps his hand around your neck instead.  This time when your airway constricts, you feel a jolt of fear that isn't at all pleasurable.

“No--stop--”

“I thought you wanted to be scared,” Tucker sneers down at you.  He tightens his hand around your neck, and you start to gag, hands clawing at his wrist… until you knee him hard between the legs.

“Ahhh, _bitch_!” he gasps out before falling to the floor and clutching his injured groin (and ego).

“I _should_ just leave you here!” you yell down at him between coughs.  Angrily, you kick your foot into his side.

“ _Aarrghhh_ , _you_ _fucking whore_!”

Pressing your lips together to hold back a snarl, you aim another kick at him--

But then it happens, the slow lengthening of a shadow, first over you, then over Tucker, plunging you both into darkness.

“What the fuck?” Tucker breathes, eyes wide and staring behind you, and you _know_ \--

Pennywise _…  He's here._

You turn to face him then, arms hovering out to your sides in a futile attempt to hide the boy you were so angry with mere moments ago.  “Wait,” you implore, voice, hands, _everything_ trembling.  “Wait.  Let us go.  Please.  Your bargain, I...I don't want it.  Please, just… just let us leave.”

He's looking down at you, his face so still and haunting it could be a mask.  His lips are upturned at the edges, but it's a smile defiled, a God-defying smirk.  When he doesn't say anything, you hurry to fill the silence.

“Sure t-this kid’s an asshole, but he-he doesn't deserve _this_ …”

Tucker hasn't budged from his place on the floor, likely frozen in shock--except for his voice.  “What are you talking about?” he demands, somehow sounding more incredulous than scared.  “And what the fuck is that?”

But you only hiss at him to shut up.

Pennywise still hasn't moved or said a word, and the lack of his usual theatrics fills you with the sudden and overwhelming urge to apologize.  “I'm sorry, I know I led you on, but I… I can't do this.  I don't… want this.”  You stare up at him, putting everything you have into these last whispered words.  “ _Please_.  I _beg_ you.  Just let us go.”

And _finally_ , the smile shifts, forming words, but even though he answers you with a whisper of his own, the simple phrase seems to ring through the cavern, tearing through everything in its way as if it was the most powerful of declarations.

“ _Too late._ ”

Your heart stops.

Then he is upon you, nothing but teeth and claws and blackness and _death_ \--except as soon as you feel his nails make contact with your shoulder, the sting lessens, replaced by the short but terrifying feeling of flight as you are thrown halfway across the room, finally slamming into the bottom of the pile of broken toys with a crash.  There’s a snarl, a roar--horrible, deafening--and as if he had reached a clawed hand down your throat and dragged the sound up himself, you are screaming.

“ _Nooooo_!”

But it isn’t enough.  Your screams aren’t enough to drown out the sounds of tearing flesh and breaking bone; the hands over your eyes aren’t enough to block out the horror.  But the _thoughts_ , the _thoughts_!  Nothing could compare to the thoughts barreling through your head ( _child killer, child killer, CHILD KILLER!),_ and your fingers bury into your skull and your tears stream down your cheeks as you beg to be taken instead--torn to pieces, suffering unspeakable pain and terror--because you actually deserve it.

 _“Not him, me, me!”_ you scream to someone— _anyone_ —but anyone never comes.

The cistern has gone chillingly silent, but still you stay there on your knees, hands over your ears and eyes shut tightly.  Soon you feel clawed hands around your shoulders lifting you effortlessly to your feet.  Immediately you feel a wave of nausea as the smell of blood and death hit you, but you don't recoil.  Instead, you simply sag in his arms, head lolling back to cast sightless eyes at him, blurred from the tears that won't stop falling.  You feel his gaze raise and lower, taking you in.  His body stills, his grip loosens, and for a moment he almost feels like someone else, someone sweet and warm and _good_ , but then he's turning you back around and roughly tugging your jeans to your ankles.

He doesn't kiss you.

He doesn’t say your name.

Yet still his hands and body are like kindling, stoking to life the fire within, the one you've tried to hide, time and time again, even though you so desperately need it.

And when you’re with him, time does more than slow—it _dies_.  Everything dies, your reality, your soul, the person you used to be, the innocent...  Nothing is safe, least of all your body, so small and fragile in his arms.  Arms that care not about the pain they cause or the fires they light—and yet you, knowing this, are here and willing.  _Why?_

Because you deserve it, you realize.  And because you love it.

Even though you know he doesn’t care.

So he doesn’t kiss you.

He doesn’t growl out your name.

He doesn’t care if you come, but you do.  Of course you do.

Or maybe... he did care.

This was your reward after all.

The fulfillment of his part of the deal.

When he finally lets you go, you collapse back onto the floor, legs, mind, and body still trembling with the shock of all you had just seen and felt.  The ground is cold against your cheek but still you don’t move, not even to tug your jeans up.  Vaguely you can sense him standing above you, quiet and motionless, staring down at you like before.

But then he sits next to you.  You feel his claws grip your shoulders, gentler this time, and before you know it, he’s pulling you into his lap.  He brings you up to his chest, cradling you gently.  There’s blood all down his front, everywhere from the tip of his nose to the orange poufs on his chest, and as you look up at him, a few drops slip from his lips to fall on your cheek.  You don’t move, but he does, wiping the blood away with a finger.

Holding you, comforting you—it’s what a lover would do.

But he isn’t one.

There’s movement above his head.  You tear your eyes away from him and squint upwards until you see them: the floating kids, dead and gone, with one more to add to the collection, if there are any pieces left.  Your eyes start to water again.  They lower back to his.

“Monsters both,” you whisper.

And to your admission he says nothing… but he doesn’t have to.  He’s won, and you know it.  You’ve known it all along.

Something brushes against your cheek.  It’s his nail, peeking through the bloody mess of his glove.  He flicks his finger upwards, and out of the corner of your eye, you see something rising.  He does it again and again until you finally understand.

It’s your _tears_.  They’re floating, up and up, sparkling like constellations in the gloom of the cistern.  They swirl high above you, little drops of sin and heartbreak, madness and regret.  Dreams.  Stardust.  It’s beautiful.

Your heart rate slows.  Your breathing settles.  A sense of calm floods your body, sweeping away every last emotion and pain until you don’t feel a thing.  Your eyelids fall.

And when the darkness swoops up to take you he is there, saying nothing.

Always nothing.

*****

“Mom, I’m not coming back.”

“No, I’m not going back to school.”

“No—mom—I know—”

“Don’t cry.  Come on, you knew this was coming.”

“I don’t know, I just…”  You sigh, catching the cord with your finger, turning it around and around.

“I just like it here.  In Derry.”  You pause, hesitating.  “With Aunt Betty.”

When the call is over, you hang the phone up with another sigh.  You didn’t need to say that, breaking your mom’s heart with such harsh finality, but it was the only way you could think of to keep her from coming here to see you.  It’s for her own good, really.  You need her to stay far, far away.

It’s been two days since you woke up once again in the guest bed, the bruises on your arms and hips the only evidence that something out of the ordinary had, indeed, happened.  You should have been alarmed, and maybe you still were, but it was so hard to tell, what with you feeling _everything_ and _nothing_ depending on the time of day.

But you’re certainly feeling _something_ when you step outside and take off, walking briskly down the middle of the empty street.  The memory of this walk has been burned so deeply into your subconscious you feel like you could shut your eyes and let your feet do all the guiding.  You breathe in deeply, savoring the clear summer air.  Yes, things just seemed so much easier when you didn’t have to think.

Though it turns out there _is_ something different along the way, fluttering in the breeze up ahead.  Your feet slow as you approach it.  Nailed to the telephone pole is a missing poster.  A black and white picture of Tucker smiles back at you; it’s his yearbook picture.  The whole poster’s in black and white and the ink is already fading.  Even the large block letters spelling out “missing” at the top are a pale gray in color.  How could the poster be seen without all the red?

There’s a house up ahead (a faded blue door, a chain link fence), but you keep walking past it without a backwards glance.  There's just no need; your eyes are on your destination, and it's right up ahead...

When your feet finally splash down into ankle-deep water, you let go of the rope and wince.  There are little splinters stuck in your palms from using the rope to climb down the well.  They remind you of gym class, high school.  That time seems so long ago.

The large metal door to the cistern creaks when you tug it open, and it's a sound you seem to feel deep down in your joints, as if your own bones were protesting the movement.  You feel tired and old.  Hollow.  Where has your youth gone?

Taken, you think, but that's only half true.  You gave the other half away.

 _But at least it was mine to give_ , you say firmly to yourself, and there's a little more of a confident lift in your step as you walk towards the middle of the room.  You pass fresh blood stains on your way.  Tucker's?  Someone else’s?  It's impossible to tell.

When you get to the foot of that dark pile of broken things, you instinctively look up.  From this distance, the faces of the floating kids are a blur, but still you squint and strain, trying to see if you can recognize any of them.

You don’t… but you _certainly_ recognize the growl that snakes over your shoulders from behind ( _and_ the way you heart jumps up to your throat and back down again like a high striker at a county fair).  Slowly, you turn on your heel to face him, and what used to be but a memory becomes real.

He’s cleaner—immediately, your eyes spring to his lips, blood-red, yes, but only from paint this time.  His hair is perfectly coiffed, his clown suit gleams, and for a moment, your breath catches at the sight of him, so tall and large and beautifully—scarily—peregrine.  But even though his presence has reached out to touch you, _he_ , himself, has not.  He’s hardly near you at all, standing instead on the opposite side of the cistern, right next to the door.  If he wanted to attack you, he would have to make quite a leap.

You’re certain that the only reason you’re still standing is because of the pile of toys behind you, but you force your lungs to draw in the biggest breath they’ve ever breathed so you can say…

“Um… hi.”

It comes out as a squeak.  _Wonderful_ , you think dryly.  _Let’s try that again, loser._

“I'm here because I… want to make a deal,” you say, firmer this time.

At this, he stays silent, and you hold out for as long as you can before speaking again, answering the unspoken question.  “I give you want you want, and you…”  Your eyes stare into his, and for the first time since coming here, you feel a spurt of confidence.  “...give me what I want.”

Half of his face is in shadow, but still you see him sneer.  “And what do _I_ want?”

“Food,” you reply simply.

This time, he laughs, and the sound seems to catch in your ears, ringing on and on.  “I do not need your help to hunt-t, human.”

“Oh, um… of course not, I just thought…”  You frown, confused.  “But this is what you wanted, isn’t it?”  And then you’re backing up as far as you can go as his voice hits you like a fist.

“Do _not_ presume to know me, you scant, pathetic thing.  Why would I care about the t-t-thoughtsss that go through that head of yourss, the struggles?  I, the Eater of Worlds?”

It courses through you then, that piercing zing of fear, of fragility, your body’s silent scream.  It's exhilarating.

 _Fucking liar_ , you think, your confidence back and brimming.  _This_ is _want you want._

He’s closer now… but he’s still not close enough.  It appears he needs motivation.

So you start to take off your clothes.  The action isn't clumsy or seductive--it's simple, as if you are merely peeling off your outer layers at the end of a long day.  When you're done, standing in nothing but tightened skin and heightened sensation, he has the nerve to turn away from you, looking bored.

You reach down into the pocket of your jeans and your hand closes around cold metal.  When you draw the knife out, he still doesn't look at you, but you can sense his interest, his head cocked towards you like a cat's.

You don't even brace yourself as you cut straight into your palm, drawing a line of blood.  You squeeze your fingers, and the little beads of crimson flow together to form a thick, dripping stream.  You glance at him again.  He's still not looking at you, but you can see the corner of his nose flaring.  This time, it's _you_ who's smirking at him with a smile to end all innocence.

With a sure and swift motion, you slide your bloodied hand over your body: across your breasts, down your stomach, between your legs, up to your neck, and finally onto your lips.  Satisfied, you let your hand fall calmly to your side.  He is certainly looking at you now.

So you raise your chin, your words defiant and laced with hunger.  “ _Scare me_.”

And to your demand he says nothing.

But he doesn't have to.

He only needs to smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELP, SO SORRY for taking longer to update than I had promised. I don't know what happened, but I got hit with a horrible bout of writer's block and could barely write a word until last week. It was really frustrating and I think it sort of shows in this chapter sadly, but regardless, it's finally finished. Thank you SO MUCH for reading all of this crazy wordiness! It means so much to me. <3<3<3 I do have to apologize if it turned out to be different than what you were expecting--it did to me, too. I had planned on making the violence and sex at the end a little more specific/direct (for me, at least), but then, well, you saw what happened. Vague as fuck. ^_^;; Sorry there wasn't that much Pennywise in this chapter, too! I didn't realize I had so much plot stuff to spit out before getting to the good stuff.
> 
> I do have plans to write a sequel to this, but it might be a little while since I have to (somehow) pull all of my crazy ideas together. But until then, once again, thank you so, so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed the ride. :-)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading Chapter 1! I hope you liked it! I also hope you don’t mind me adding a bigger plot to this series and thus being lighter on the smut. I just like angst and feels too much, apparently. I’d love to know your thoughts on this chapter and on the direction the story’s going in.


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